MASTER 


NE 


ATIVE 


0.91  -8044  7 


MICROFILMED  1 992 

LUMB!  \  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES/NEW  YORK 


as  part  of  the 
"Foundations  of  Western  Civilization  Preservation  Project" 


Funded  by  the 

WMENT  FOR  THE  HUMANITIES 


R  eproductions  may  not  be  made  without  permission  from 

Columbia  University  Library 


COPYRIGHT  STATEMENT 

Til.  *  w  of  the  United  States  -  Title  17,  United 

ms  the  making  of  photocopies  or  other 
reproductions  ■  '*    .py righted  material.,. 


w. 


Coliinibia  L  niversity  Library  reserves  the  right  to  refuse  to 
accept  a  copy  order  if,  in  its  judgement,  fulfillment  of  the  order 
would  involve  violation  of  the  copyright  law. 


AUTHOR 


PHIL  P,  JOSEPH  HOWA-iD 


Arm..  1-.JMJJ  « 


PRINCii 


n 


LEOF 


INDIVIDUATION 

PLACE: 

[NEW 
1916 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  # 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


■■■tHMMM^AiVMiak    Jw^«' iaB^riL#itftw>rtaiMMMn^lMMMki.K«^»*MMMto ' 


191U01 
DP 


Philp,  Joaeph  Howard 

The  principle  of  individuation  in  the  philo- 
sophy of  Josiah  Royce,  by  Joseph  Howard  Philp., 
CI9I63 


96  p.   23  on. 


,  93-'^ 


Thesis    (Ph.DOt    Yale,    1916# 


.J 


TECHNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 


IMAGF.  !'!.AC'i';MI-,Nr:     lA    TiX*    IB 
I)  ATI-:      I'lKMi"!):         ^  -/ 

FII.MHi^  H; 


REDUCTION     RATIO:       // >" 


!  iii 


i  Vi.. 


*     k  •   \ 


iNITIALS___-Z:?^__. 
iLICATIONS.  INC  WOODDRIDGE.  CT 


1 

r 

Association  for  Information  and  image  Management 

1100  Wayne  Avenue,  Suite  1100 
Silver  Spring,  Maryland  20910 

301/587-8202 


Centimeter 

1         2         3 


U 


11 


mi 


iiii|iiii|ii|ilii|ilii 


I 


4         5         6 

iliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiil 
I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I 


7        8 

liiiiliiiil 


9        10 

iiliiiiliiiiliii 


TTT 


TTT 


11 

llllllllllllll 


12       13       14        15    mm 

iliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiili 


iiliiii 


Inches 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


I  45 

!£■ 

■  90 


2.8 


3.2 


3.6 
4.0 


1.4 


2.5 


2.2 


2.0 


1.8 


1.6 


MRNUFFICTURED   TO   fillM   STRNDfiRDS 
BY    fiPPLIED    IMflGE-     INC. 


It-P 


I;! 
('J 


^<>4i^o4HB^<  t4 


M  >'«■»< >'«a»<t'4H»<>«H»<)4Bik<>«i^<)<i^»<>^^»<l4M»<>«i»<>4 


i 


rhe  Principle  of  Individuation 


IN  THE 


Philosophy  of  Jo«iah  Royce 


I 

i 
I 
I 

i 


i 
I 
I 
j 
I 

i 


^■?.;r-     .    J 

.-»■   .;.     :-■ ..-  4 

r  ■.■^,;  ^i^  : 

1^ 

4 
if        ^ 

: 

1 

! 

'J 

' 

1 
i 

i: 

;» 
♦ 

BY 


JOSEPH  HOWARD  PIIILP,  M.A.,  B.J. 


i  r 


A  DISSERTATION 

esented  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Graduate 
School  of  Yale  University 
in  Candidacy  for  the  Degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy. 


1916 


i 

i 


M  i^Ht^O^l^i  ■^■»<>'< 


»<>«■»!  i'«ii»n^i»«>'«B»>>'W^'<* 


i 
j 

i 

I 

i 
I 
i 

i 
I 
I 
f 


M<« 


^S": '      -a 


.^■Sl 


i  Ji 


Columbia  Bniber^itP 

mttirCitPotJletoforli 


I.IRRARV 


\,H 


Y- 


I'- 


i'il 


i 


i 


E 


;*», 


*•:<;] 


it 


I 


The  Principle  of  Individaation 


IN  THE 


Philosopliy  of  Josiali  Royce 


BY 


JOSEPH  HOWARD  PH 


JLi«I>< 


I 


A  DISSERTATION 

Prese^led  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Graduate 

School  of  Yale  University 

in  Candidacy  for  the  De:^^e'^  of 

Doctor  of  Philosophy. 


lyf 


1916 


1 » 


«% 


w        \\ 


/7, 

■    (  [■..'H'-M-/} 


-'o  -  2^  I 


U' 


.  \ 


I 

■'I 

1 


CONTENTS 


Introduction — Cliai)ter  I 

Part  I.      Historical 

Period   1.     Chapter  ]].— Exposition 

Cliaptor    III. — Critical 

Period  II.   diapter   IV.— Exposition 

Chapter    V. — Critical 

Period  III.  Chapter  \' I.— Exposition 

Chapter    VII.— Critical 

Chapter  Yill. — Snmmary  on  Indivi- 

dnation    

Part  II.      Constructive  Criiicisni 

Cha])tcr  JX.— On  the  Ahsohile 

Chapter  X.— On  Self-alieinition 

Conclnsion 


10 

10 

IS 

2(j 
Si] 

36 
47 


GO 
GO 

78 

91 


3"? 


J 


ERRATA — p-page ;     1-lJne. 

I.    Misspelled  or  wrong  words. 

OMIT 

p.      5.   1.  34 — Pliilosophy. 

p.   12.   1.    5 — Relativity. 

p.      0.   1.  27 — The    content. 

p.    15.   1.33 — Apply    (not   appear). 

p.    64.   1.  23 — Even. 

p.   16.   1.  15 — Consciousnesses. 

p.   85.   1.  42— Only    formally. 

p.   23.   1.  31^Teleological. 

ADD    - 

p.    29.   1.  20 — Brute. 

p.    31.   1.  36 — Expression. 

p.   47,   at  end  of  I.   37 — Not. 

p.    34.   1.  32 — Arguing    (not    iii-ging 

p.   39.   1.  18 — Purposo. 

MISTAKES    IN    FIGURES 

p.   40.   1.  29 — Emphasize. 

p.   41.   1.  39 — Insight. 

p.      6 — not«    9,    409    (not    400) 

p.   45.   1.  23 — Earlier    (not    earliest 

p.    12.   1.  17 — 17    (not    15). 

p.   49.   1.     6 — It    (not    is) 

pp.    16-17 — notes   49    &    50 — out   of 

P.   52.  1.  30 — As    (not    is). 

correct   order. 

p.    61.   1.  34— Absolute. 

p.    17.  1.  24 — 53    (not    58). 

p.   66.   1.  38— Created. 

p.   27.   1,  18 — 10    (not   40). 

p.   67.  1.    6 — Foreknowledge. 

p.   29.   1.  19 — at   25   insert    " 

p.   79.  1.  12— Chaos. 

p.   37 — note   7 — 7   is  missing. 

p.   85.   1.    9      Conscientiousness. 

p.   94.      — Santayana. 

1 1 


I 


4 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  INDIVIDiATiON  IN  THE 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  JOSIAH  ROYCE. 

IXTRODIXTIOX. 

CHAPTEK    I. 

T. 

The  aim  of  this  thesis  is  to  estimate  the  contrihution  which 
Prof.  Royce  has  made  on  the  question  of  the  principle  of 
individuation.  It  is  a  point  on  which  monistic^ idealism  must 
saj  something.  And  it  is  a  point  on  which  the  answers  of 
monism  have  been  verv  unsatisfactory  to  their  opponents. 

The  realist  finds  his  problem  in  a  seareli  for  the  principle 
of  umty  among  the  world  of  facts.  The  idealist  finds  difficulty 
in  making  full  provision  in  the  unity  for  thj  finite  individmls. 

Possibly  no  idealist  has  written  more  comprehensively  on 
the  question  than  has  Royce.  And  no  idealist  has  sought  to 
keep  his  doctrines  grounded  in  empirical  facts  more  than  he 
has.  The  older  absolutists  re-read  our  actual  thinking  ex- 
perience, our  actual  scientific  consciousness,  and  our  actual  as- 
sociative life  in  detail,  in  terms  of  that  which  gives  them 
their  reality.  But  if  you  posit  some  process  of  t-ransmutation, 
not  consciously  experienced  by  us  as  finite,  you  can  get  almost 
any  conclusion.  Royce  would  leave  our  experiences  in  the 
region  of  the  empirical.  Our  individual  and  social  cat^ories 
are  to  be  valid  in  the  infinite.  Our  lives  are  to  be  included 
in  the  absolute  without  any  transmutation.^ 

Royce  is  ever  affirming  that  he  goes  only  so  far  as  the  tinite 
facts  will  allow.  More  room  is  thus  left  for  the  actual  lie 
would  satisfy  the  empirical  scientist.  The  Absolute,  in  which 
he  seeks  to  place  finite  beings  a-nd  facts,  is  an  absolute  v/hich 
he  has  demonstrated  as  the  logical  implication  of  the  facts. 
He  claims  to  be  able  to  make  the  transition  logically  and  truly 
in  both  directions. 

Now  it  is  submitted  in  this  thesis  that  the  Absolute  is 
brought  to  the  facts,  not  found  there.  The  apparently  larger 
concession  to  and  reverence  for  the  empirically  given  elements 
is  mainly  nominal  So  far  from  finding  the  Absolute  !)y 
way  of  logic,  he  seems  to  reach  the  Absolute  by  way  of  'con- 
trast'.^    And  this  method  is  one  which  works  in  the  realm  of 

1.     See  the  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  433.     The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosphy, 
380.     The  World  and  the  Individual,  Vol.  I,  p.  426  f. 


6 


Uinjcc  and  I ndlvUhiallon 


lioijco   and   J ttdiridiialion 


the  conceptual.^  The  tinite  is  portrayed  as  so  fragmentary  that 
the  completed  whole  rises  in  imagination  on  the  other  side. 
The  true  self  that  looms  up  through  such  contrast  is  the  finite 
self.'*  When  we  learn  that  "the  true  distinction,  and  the  true 
connection,  between  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  aspects  of 
Being,  furnish,  in  truth,  the  basis  for  a  solution  of  this  whole 
problem-  "'^md  are  given  no  common  ground  between  the  two 
conceptions,  we  find  ourselves  at  sea.  To  be  told  that  "the 
eternal  Now  is  simply  not  the  temporal  present,"®  seems  of 
the  essence  of  contrast,^  not  of  logic. 

The  contention  is  made  here  that  the  Absolute  is  an  imported 
conceptirm. 

If  we  bear  in  mind  however  that  Koyce  would  carry  over  un- 
transmuted  into  the  Ab^^olute  finite  facts  and  individuals,  and  if 
we  add  to  this  the  alternative^  reading  of  the  ultimate  which  he 
allows  in  his  third  period,  (i.e.  the  ultimate  is  the  Divine 
Community),  wo  have  a  result  which  may  claim  to  be  no  mere 
contrast  but  a  logical  conclusion.  This  alternative  reading 
while  it  marks  a  distinct  advance  in  emphasis  on  the  social' 
seems  an  unadmitted  retreat  ^from  the  engulfing  Absolute.  In 
his  latest  period,  Royce,  in  follcnving  out  the  oiitologieal  monn- 
ing  of  loyalty,  has  been  forced  to  ascribe  something  of  the 
eternal  and  underived  to  the  members  of  the  community.  But 
the  personal  or  individual  Absolute  must  then  be  another  in 

dividual  or  the  informing  spirit  of  the  community.      Royce  has 

* 

2.  See  the  Philosophical  Review  (lf)02),  p.  404.  Prof.  Dewey  says  "the  fragmen- 
tariness,  the  trursitoriness  of  our  actual  experience  the  content  is  magnified:  ... 
it  affords  by  contrast  the  content  of  the  definition  of  the  Absolute." 

3.  Dewey,  (o.c.),  p.  406,  claims  that  Royce  is  working  with  the  formal.  "Rojce 
dives  arbitrarily  from  the  region  of  concepts  into  the  cl  aotic  sea  of  experience, 
and  fishes  out  here  and  there  just  that  particular  experience  which  is  required  at 
that   time  to   give   bodv   and   tone  to   thin  and   empty  catet'ories." 

4       See  G    H    Howison,   "The  Conception  of  God."  p.   104;   or  W.  E.  Hocking,   "The 
Meaning   of  God  in  Human  Experience,"  p.   290;   or  C.   M.  Bakewell,   "The  Inter- 
national Journal  of  Ethics,"    (vol.    12,   p.   394)    in  a  r-jview  of  The  World  and  the 
Individual. 

5.  The  World  and  the  Individual,  vol.   IT,   p.   347. 

6.  The  Conception  of  God,   p.  348.  _ 

7  See  as  example  of  mere  contrast,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II.  p  44o.  in  troa 
we  are  real  individuals,  and  really  conscious  Selves, — a  fact  which  neither  human 
thought  nor  human  experience,  nor  yet  any  aspect  of  our  present  form  of  cou- 
sciouBness  can  make  present  and  obvious  to  our  consciousness,  as  now  it  is." 
How   has   the  human   being.   Prof.   Koyce,   learned   about  it  ? 

8  I  call  it  an  alternative  reading  since  I  do  not  find  the  equivalence  of  th-i  two  read- 

ings to  be  proven.   Royce   seeks  by  postulating  real   individuality   to  social   unities 
above  the  level  of  man,  to  merge  finally  such  unities  in  the  Absolute.  But  I  do  not 
know    what    is    meant    when    we    are    told    that    these    super-personal    unities    have 
•minds'.  It  is  the  citizen  who  thinks,  not  the  state.   It  is   the  citizen  who  has  con- 
science,  not   the  community. 
9.      See  the  Problem  of  Christiauify,  II.  p.  296,  220,  270,  I.  p.  400.      In  private  con- 
versation Royce  claims  still  to  be  an  Absolutist,  and  refers  to  the  illustration  of  the 
men  and   the  bo.'it.      See  the  Problem   of  Christianity,    TT.    pn.    I'V   Ot.    242    f 


not  adopted  the  former.     The  latter  alone  seems  open  to  liim 
and  it  is  not  the  Absolute  of  the  earlier  periods. 

ir. 

This  change  from  the  earlier  absolutism,  if  admitted,  frees 
Royce's  work  from  a  charge  which  is  to  the  point  against  his 
earlier  position.  It  is  submitted  that  in  such  an  Absolute  as 
is  treated  of  in  the  earlier  periods,  there  is  no  room  for  real 
individuals.  Xo  amount  of  portrayal  of  the  situation  from 
one  side  or  from  the  other  makes  the  One  and  the  Many  really 
articulate.  The  grasping  of  the  distinction  and  connection  of 
the  eternal  and  the  temporal  is  not  made  clear.  He  oscillates 
between  an  eternal  which  is  a  grasping  of  the  whole  time-span 
and  where  all  particular  moments  are  alike  1o  the  eternal,  and 
an  eternal  which  is  in  each  finite  constituting  it  what  it  is.  Fur- 
ther his  whole  treatment  of  the  eternal  and  future  time  is  un- 
set isf  actor  v. 

While  (in  contrast  with  Bradley)  lioyce  would  ascribe 
thought  and  will,  selfhood  and  experience,  to  the  Absolute,  !t 
must  be  noted  that  the  capitalizing  of  these  terms  is  a  device 
which  deludes.  With  us,  thought  always  finds  its  objects  be- 
yond itself.  For  Thought  there  is  concrete  union  with  the 
objects.  Here  again  it  is  submitted  we  have  a  contrast  present- 
ed to  oneself  in  imagination  or  conception  not  a  logical  and 
existent  fact.  So  it  is  with  the  other  individual  and  social 
categories  which  are  taken  as  valid  l^eyond  the  finite. 


III. 


Further,  if  we  follow  Koyce,  in  his  third  period,  in  what 
T  hav^e  called  his  alternative  for  the  Absolute,  we  will  find  his 
treatment  of  the  principle  of  individuation  to  be  partial  and 
inadequate. 

The  ultimate  is  the  Divine  Communitv.  Individuation 
is  then  an  ultimate  feature  of  realitv.  The  individual  is  eter- 
nal  and  underived.  This  being  so  reflection  and  conscious 
purpose  and  interpretation  mark  aspects  of  the  making  explicit 
of  the  potential.  They  are  not  the  ultimate  causes  for  actuali- 
zation. Back  of  reflection  and  will  lie  less  calculable  impulses 
and  desires.  The  impulse  to  live,  to  reflect,  to  will,  are  ulti- 
mately inexplicable. 


I 


lioijce   and  Lidiviilualion 


JiOt/ce   and   liuHvlduallun 


9 


Keflection  and  will  seem  to  enter  a  Held  of  want  or  difficulty 
already  there.  They  are  not  primitive.  What  is  primitivo^'^ 
must  contain,  in  germ  at  least,  what  conies  later  but  it  is  reached 
in  actual  experimentation.  It  cannot  be  outlined  in  theory 
ahead  of  time.  The  facts  of  the  social  precede  the  postulating,^ 
of  man  as  social. 

One  niav,  in  theory,  declare  that  a  life  based  on  instincls 
and  desires^nd  impulses  is  one  of  anarchy.  Yet  out  of  the 
inchoate,  primitive  form  of  life  the  rational  develops.  Even 
the  hi*^her  forms  of  individual  life  seem  to  attain  a  ^second 
nature ,  where  reflection  works  like  instinct  at  the  first  stage, 
i.e.  there  is  a  free  and  non-reasoning  functioning  of  a  life. 

IV. 

If  we  give  u))  the  futile  eudcavor  to  articulate  the  many  in 
an  Absolute  and  look  at  Royce's  view  of  the  true  life  for  the 
many,  the  contention  is  made  that  the  ethical  ideal  set  forth 
is  self  alienating.  In  the  concrete,  life  cannot  be  other  than 
personal.  The  sources  or  springs  of  conduct  are  ever  within 
rather  than  Vvithout. 

It  <loes  not  change  the  situation  radically  to  emphasize  that 
the  choice  of  a  cause  is  left  to  individual  initiative.  Even  in 
the  third  period  the  cause  a  man  is  to  serve  is  impersonal  as 

reo^ards  himself.     It  is  ])ersonal  only  in  that  it  involves  other 
persons.  ^^ 

The  contention  is  put  forward  that  our  life  is  so  complex 
that  no  Universal  Will  which  all  may  follow  can  be  found.'' 
That  which  Tioyce  has  discovered  is  the  empty  formal  principle, 
^Will  that  there  be  such  a  will'.  Life  being  thus  so  complex' 
the  individual,  if  \w  would  have  a  career,  not  a  chaos,  must  be 
the  center  of  that  career.  Royce  has  used  the  methiMl  of 
magnified  contrast,  in  reducing  the  individual'"  to  the  private, 
to  the  merely  private,  to  the  ab-^olutely  isolated.      It  becomes 

10    A    K    Rogers    (in  The  Philosophical  Review    1900,   p.    l»30)    wyg   'Thoiicht     from 

'   the    biolocical    standpoint,    cannot    possibly    be    regarded    as    an    end    m    ith^.f.    but 

only  as  a  function   of  the  whole  life-process.      For  psychological  theory,    the  onjei- 

nal   datum   is   the  organism   already   struggling   to   maintun   and   develop   ityli.      It 

is  from  this  that  the  life  of  conscious  experience  is   slo  vly  differentiated. 

11.  See  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  20.  G.  Santayana  (in  The  Journal  of  Ph,L 
Psy.  and  Sc'ic  Method  Nov.  25,  '15,  p.  649).  asks  "Why  is  true  freedom  -^  ^.vy 
unlike  the  blessed  consciousnesss  of  being  willingly   a   sl^ve  ?  ,  .  , 

12  A  K  Rogers  (The  Philosophical  Review  1016,  p.  162)  s-iys  "we  are  led  to  de- 
"  fine  tiie  Summum  Bonum  as  the  sura  of  the  interests  and  satisfactions  of  all  senti- 
ent creatures,  not  in  so  far  as  they  possess  some  one  identical  content,  but^  in  so 
far  as  they  are  capable  of  living  together  harmoniously  in  the  same   world. 

13.    See  The   Phi1<»8ophy  of   T.nyalty.    p.   08. 


i 


4 

i 


1 


I 


«' 
^ 


an  empty  claim  to  individuality.  On  the  other  side  is  the 
world  of  objective  situations  and  affairs.  Of  course  one  w^ill 
choose  this  alternative  as  giving  content  to  life.  But  it  is 
submitted  that  this  life  of  content  will  be  chaotic  without  the 
center  of  selfhood  around  which  it  must  be  organized.  Such 
contrast  is  not  logic  and  outside  the  merely  formal,  in  the 
world  of  objective  situations  wc  find  that  life  centers  around 
selves. 

Not  only  is  the  w^orld  too  large  and  complex  for  one  to  find 
an  unequivocal  Universal  Will,  but,  the  world  being  composed 
of  many  individuals,  the  question  of  unanimity  on  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  Universal  Will  becomes  a  vexing  problem.  ^So 
many  Gods,  so  many  creeds^  says  a  poet.  How^  is  one  to  know^ 
or  choose  among  the  rival  claimants  for  one's  loyalty  ?  Royce 
seems  very  obscure  at  this  point. 

If  I  find  myself  at  odds  with  a  neighbor  in  our  interpretation 
of  this  Will,  I  shall  be  less  an  individual  if  I  drop  my  ow^n 
view  to  follow  his.  And  if  I  seek  to  follow^  the  gleam  for 
myself,  I  will  have  great  difficulty  in  making  my  neighbor 
accept  my  position  as  impersonal  and  unbiased. 

In  fact,  it  is  submitted  that  it  is  only  in  conceptioti  that  one 
can  build  up  a  world  in  which  the  self  and  its  satisfactions 
are  sunk  in  larger  causes.  On  the  contrary,  in  actual  life  the 
source  of  all  initiative  is  personal,  and  at  every  stage  the  self 
is  still  the  center  of  its  own  life  and  still  estimates,  in  terras 
of  its  own  satisfactions,  the  value  of  objective  situations  and 
events  and  causes. 


IQ  '      Royce   and   Indirldtiation 

PART  I.— HISTORICAL. 

Period  I. 

CllAi^TER  II. 

Exposition. 

1. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  thesis,  the  writings  of  Prof.  Royce 
are  divided  into  three  periods/  In  the  first  period,  the  prin- 
ciple of  individuation  in'  the  finite  is  ^Reflection'.  In  the 
second,  it  is  ^wilF.  In  the  third,  it  is  Royalty'  or  the  Svill  to 
interpret'. 

In  the  first  period,  Royce  is  seeking  primarily  to  demon- 
strate the  reality  of  the  ^\bsolute'.  In  the  second,  he  seeks 
to  make  clear  the  principle  of  individuation  and  also  to  articu 
late  fully  the  One  and  the  Many,  the  ^World  and  the  Indivi- 
duaP.  In  the  third  p^M-iod,  we  are  given  the  social  or  ethical 
implications  of  the  metaphysical  position  which  Royce  occupies. 

In  the  first  period  he  is  reacting  against  a  metaphysics 
based  on  evolution.^  The  long  processes  in  evolutionary  des- 
cent seem  to  Royce  to  be  an  historical  succession  only  if  behind 
or  in  all  the  change  there  is  the  permanent..  In  the  second 
period,  he  shows  that  adequate  place  is  given  to  the  finite 
individual  in  the  Absolute  whose  existence  he  has  demonstrat- 
ed. In  the  third  period,  the  ethical  and  social  implications 
in  the  finite  are  elaborated  to  show  the  significant  place  in 
realitv  which  the  finite  occupies. 

11. 

At  the  time  the  firsi  book  was  written  scientists  were  ask- 
r  What  are  the  facts  ?  Some  of  philosophic  bent  were  con- 
structing a  metaphysics  on  the  basis  of  these  evolutionary 
sciences.  Their  ultimate  was  ^Nature',  'Natural  Law',  'Hu- 
manity' or  an  'Unknowable'.*'' 

1      (a)    The    Relic-ious    Aspect    of    Phil.     (1885).    The    Spirit    of    Modern    Philosophy 

•   a892)     The  Conception  of  God    (pp.   3-50)    i^S^^V  ;^.>    I,*^^^;^'' 'sSq    1901 
;i        1  r        Ti<^m»-^\    ^AQ^       Thw  World  and  the  Individual,   2  vols.   18»»,   i»"i- 

^^'^ir^hLChy  oVlo^^^^^^   (1909^      TheSources  of  Religious  Insight   (1911). 
'rtl^l^le^Ti^^^^^^^  toU.    (1913).      There  are  ^!-  two  hooks  of  essay, 

and   some   reprints  of   nrticle.s   in  periodicals.    (1)    Studies   in   Good   and    Ev,l.    (2) 
Wm.   James  and  Other  Kssays. 


Bojjrr   and   Individnaiion 


11 


1 


Koyee  seeks  an  answer  to  the  question,  What  is  a  fact  ^ 
The  answer,  he  finds  in  following  out  the  logical  implications 
ol  the  fact,  lie  finds  a  positive  doctrine  of  an  Absolute.  The 
world-primary  is  'Thought'.  Such  Thought  he  holds  to  be  a 
person'.*  The  world  in  time,  of  which  evolution  has  so  much 
to  say  is  a  temporal  manifestation  of  this  personal  life.  For 
Royce,  'the  far-off  divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves''  IS  eternally  existent.  "Time  is  once  for  all  present 
in  all  Its  moments  to  a  universal  all-inclusive  thought.'" 

The  facts,  whose  logical  implications  are  examined  bv 
Royce,  ,are  the  nature  of  the  'ought','  of  'religious  faith','  of 
•hi.ite  selfliood'^  of  'finite  experience'."  The  examination  of 
the  "possibility  of  error'--'  is  his  favorite"'  demonstration  in 
proving  the  reality  of  the  Absolute.  In  his  treatment  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Absolute,  we  have  thus  much  of  Royce's  views 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  finite  individual  and  of  the  principle 
of  indivi(hiiifi(pn. 

The  method,  which  is  characteristic  ,.f  the  logic  .,f  Royce's 
doctrine,  and  one  which  he  explicitlv  states,  is  this.  "The  onl> 
demonstrable  truths  of  an  ultimate  philosophy  relate  to  the 
constitution  of  an  actual  realm  of  experience,  and  to  so  much 
only  about  the  constitution  of  this  realm  as  cannot  be  denied 
without  self-contradiction."  That  truth  is  "Absolute"  which' 
if  you  deny,  "you  implicitly  affirm."-  In  the  sense  of  imper- 
fection, defeat,  error,  or  incompleteness,  we  find  logical  impli- 
cations of  a  positive  doctrine  of  reality  as  it  is. 

2.  See  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.   6,   11.  43     167    •>■>■,   ,    ,!>«    <><!7    oa- 
^«0.    401,   430.      3     (See   Religious  Aspect  of  Philo8ophy)fi  p    6.  '  '  - 

433  I"nV«^'^'  r'/Tl  "^'^'^T      '"'^^"   Religious   Aspect  of  Philosophy,    p 

;>  L  \  ^®  .^^""'^  ""^  -^««dern  Philosophy,  p.  380,  he  uses  the  word  'person'  of 
the  Ab.solute.  In  'The  World  and  the  Individual',  vol.  II.  p.  XIV  writL  o?  hi 
earliesl  book  he  say.s  in  it  he  ascribed  'conscious  individuality'  io  Tlie  ll^solut^ 
Compare    with    Tennyson— Browning    (Paracelsus).  '  Absolute. 

.     ,  "-'^•1    tended   up    to    mankind, 

And  man  produced,  all  hath  its  end  thus  far. 

But    in    completed    man   begins   anew 

A  tendency  to  God." 
Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.  423.      See  also  pp.   443     484 
(See   The   Religious   Aspect   of   Philosophy.)    Bks.    I.    &    II' 
See   The   Spirit   of   Modern   Philosophy,    pp.    368-380 
See  The  Conception  of  God,   pp.  3-50. 

10.  The  Religious   Aspect  of  Philosophy,    Ch.   XI. 

11.  It   was   the   subject   of   his   thesis   *for   the   Doctor's    degree   and   is   referred   to   in 
different  places   in  his  books.      See   The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy    p    XIH 
The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  p.  371.      The  Conception  of  God.   pp    1^6.   342 
Studies  m  Good  and  Evil    pp.   140.   163.      The  World  and  the  Individual,   vol    II 
nhWt    !/    I      T^  *   P^^i^™;"«n^,  Statement   showing   the   complete   identity   of  the 
object    of    knowledge    and    the    ob.iect    in    the    ronl    world,    a    proof    based    on    the 
mature  of   thought   is   open   to   ambiguity.     Conceptual   completeness   is   so   easy   lo 

12.   The  World  and   the  Individual,   vol.   I.   p.   XI. 


5. 


8. 
9. 


I    ♦ 


I'aMitnfiiiiiiifiifl"'*"'''^**'''*-^^ 


12 


PkOljre    and    I  ltd  i  rid  not  ion 


III. 


* 


liUijce   and   Indiuldualion 


13 


If  Wror'  is  possible'  there  is  a  real  difference  between  truth 
and  error.  If  evolution  or  a  stream  of  successive  eveiits  were 
the  last  word,  our  standards  of  tru.th  and  error  would  be  ten- 
tative— if,  indeed,  we  would  have  any  sense  of  continuity. 
The  doctrine  of  Total  Relativilty  goes  beyond  ^reasonable 
doubt'.  "It  tries  to  put  scepticism  to  rest,  by  declaring  the 
opinion,  'that  there  is  error',  to  be  itself  an  error.""  But  **if 
there  is  no  real  distinction  between  truth  and  error  then  the 
statement  that  there  is  such  a  difference  is  not  really  false,  but 
only  seemiiiirly  false."^*  This  is  the  ultimate  test.  "That 
real  error  exists  is  absolutelv  indubitable."^"  Hence  the  finite 
being  is  capable  of  valid  thought.^* 

Where  then  is  the  criterion  of  truth  and  error  ?  It  is 
not  the  subjective  standard  of  so-called  psychological  idealism, 
for  "if  my  mind  can  be  concerned  only  with  its  own  ideas, 
then  sincerity  and  truth  are  identical,  and  truth  and  error  will 
be  alike  impossible."^**  In  such  a  case,  I  could  make  corrert 
assertions  about  the  content  of  my  thought.  But  we  mean  by 
truth  more  than  mere  correctness. 

There  is  more  adequacy  in  the  "commonplace  assumption 
that  a  statement  of  mine  can  agree  or  fail  to  agree  with  it? 
real  object,  when  this  object  is  wholly  outside  my  thought."'® 
The  finite  thinker  is  one  "whose  thought  has  objects  outside 
of  it  with  which  it  can  agree  or  disagree."^®  If  this  is  true 
of  each,  it  is  true  of  all  finite  beings  and  the  reality  of  truth 
and  error  cannot  be  explained  on  "the  consensus  of  men"  or 
by  a  show  of  hands. 

Again,  this  question  of  the  reality  of  truth  and  error  is  not 


13.   The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  394.      14.  Ibid,  p.  375.      15.  Ibid,  p.   395. 

16.  This  is  not  merely  to  say  that,  however  critical  one  may  be  of  thought's  activity, 
One  must  strirt  with  this  necessary  assumption  that  thought  is  capable  of  reaching 
valid  results.  No  doubt  it  is  the  "reflexive  turn',,  the  "absolute  assurance"  of 
the  subject — as  indicated  in  "The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience",  p.  191 
f.  by  W,  E.  Hocking.  Royce  in  turning  in  on  the  subject  wishes  to  see  what  the 
'subject'  is.      He  finds  the   subject  is  in  reality  the  Absolute  as   Subject. 

17.  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  378.  D.  S.  Miller  in  the  Philosophical 
Review  (1893)  p.  403  f.  has  sought  to  show  the  vicarious  nature  of  knowledge 
which  carries  past  experiences  in  image,  kinesthesia  or  other  symbolic  equivalent. 
He  thinks  that  this  meets  Royce  on  the  nature  of  error,  in  that  the  finite  knower 
himself  carries  the  corrective  of  the  error  in  this  vicarious  form.  An  inclusive 
mind  would  not  then  be  needed.  James  (in  "The  Meaning  of  Truth"  p.  22,  note> 
agrees  with  Miller.  The  problem  of  Royce  is  however  just  that  which  Miller 
assumes,  viz. :  the  significance  of  our  knowing  actual  reality  Miller's  work  is  a 
study  in  the  psychology  of  an  individual.  Royce  is  dealing  with  the  metaphysical 
question. 

1^      The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy",    p.   378.    10.   Ibid.   p.   377. 


one  which  time  fixes.  We  say  that  time  will  prove  one  right 
or  wrong.  But  if  it  will  be  right  in  the  future  it  must^e 
right  in  the  present.  "The  future  is  now,  as  future,  non- 
existent, and  so  judgments  about  the  future  lack  real  objects  "-« 
Truth  does  not  depend,  for  its  infallibility,  on  the  outcome  of 
the  temporal  process.  My  judgment  is  about  real  objects  and 
is  true  or  false  now,  I  do  not  "make"  but  "find"  ''  truth 
One  can  speak  neither  truly  nor  falsely  about  a  merely  "pos- 
sible"" object.  ^  ^      ^ 


\ 


The  agreement  or  disagreement  of  my  thought  with  objects 
outside  of  it  "can  be  possible,  only  if  there  is  a  thought  'that 
includes  both  my  thought  and  the  object  wherewith  my  thought 
is  to  agree.     This   inclusive   thought  must   be  related  to  my 
thought  and  its  objects  as  my  thought  is  related  to  the  various 
partial  thoughts  that  it  includes  and  reduces  to  unity  in  any 
one  of  my  complex  assertions.""       ^ly  judgment  is  true  or 
false  according  as  it  agrees  with  or  differs  fromthis  all-embrac- 
ing thought.     And  Time',   in  which  I  become  aware  of  the 
accuracy  of  my  though:,  is  "present  in  all  its  moments  to  a 
universal   and   all-inclusive  thought"'*   "in  the  unity  of  one 
eternal  moment"^'     Further  a  judgment,  to  "be  false  when 
made,  must  be  false  before  it  was  made.     An  error  is  possible 
only  when  the  judgment  in  which  the  error  is  to  be  expressed 
always    was   false"'«     This    all-inclusive   thought   hns   present 
to  Itself  "all  possible  relations  of  all  the  objects  in  space,  In 
time,  or  in  the  world  of  the  barely  possible."'^     It  is  thus  an 
"absolute  rational  unity."       ^'Our  thought  needs  the  Infinite 
Thought  in  order  that  it  may  get,  through  this  Infinite  judge, 
the  privilege  of  being  so  much  as  even  an  error"""  and  "save 
for  Thought  there  is  no  truth,  no  error,  in  separate  thoughts."-^ 
The  finite  being  is  *^a  part  of  the  universal  life."'*' 

In  the  finite  individual,  thought  and  its  objects  are  never 
fully  united.     Evolution  holds  out  to  thought  the  hope  that 
the  future  will  bring  fulfilment.     Royce   sees   the   'meaning' 
I  of  thought  as  indicating  that  such  fulfilment  is  eternally  pre- 
sent in  the  Absolute.     The  Thought  of  the  Absolute  is  ever 

^^'  T90  f '^ir"Tl-^^'^*'^St  ^^"T^^^'  P-  ^2"^  '•    21.  Ibid.  p.  431.    22.  n.id  p. 

428  f.  23,  Ibid.  p.  377  f.  Here  we  see  reference  to  finite  thought  as  a  true 
unity  in  variety  or  variety  in  unity.  This  has  reference  not  to  thought  in  relation 
to   Its  objects    but  m   itself  as   it  faces  its   world   of  objects.     In  The  World  and 

n%h  i^  .  •  '''''•  ^'  ?:  ^^^  '•  ^^^""  '"^«  ^^^P^'^^'^  «"  '^^^  ««  something  present 
in   the   finite  correspondmg  to   the   unity  of  the  Absolute. 

|24.   The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.  423.      25.   Ibid.   p.   441.      26.   Ibid    p  424 
f.      27.    Ibid.    p.    425.      28.   Ibid.  p.  427.      29.   Ibid.  p.   432.      30.    Ibid.    p.    Ssl 


14 


Iioycr   and   hidichlualuni 


one  with  its  object.  Tlie  persistent  ineunipleteness  in  the  tem- 
poral, indicates  that  the  true  self  of  the  fragmentary  finite  self 
is  the  Absolute.      We  are  ])arts  of  the  Tnfiinte  Siihjecr. 


^•;a 


Again  this  Thought  is  inclusive  of  "Will  and  Experience, 
and  refers  "not  only  to  finite  processes  of  thinking,  but  also 
and  expressly  to  the  inclusive  Whole  of  Insight;  in  which  botl 
truth  and  value  are  attained,  not  as  objects  beyond  Thought's 
ideas  but  as  t'ppreciated  and  immanent  fulfilment  or  expression 
of  all  the  purposes  of  finite  thought. "^- 

The  logic  of  the  facts  of  'errc^r'  has  thus  led  up  to  the  cei: 
ception  of  an  ^All-Thinker'.  This  whole  has  constituted  a 
world  in  which  we  find  what  we  term  finite  individuals.^'^  In 
these  finite  beings  is  a  power  of  thinking  or  *Kef lection',  which 
is  able  to  transcend  the  temjmral.  The  objects  of  this  reflec- 
tion are  ever  'beyond  it',  a  separation  wliicli  it  never  overcome 
in  the  temporal.  ''Moments  of  Insight"'^'*  come  when,  in  ideal, 
the  separation  is  overcome.  This  is  not  a  mystic  vision  since 
it  is  a  product  of  refloction. 

IV. 

The  finite  being  is  as  'thinker'  n  inic  'pari'  of  the  Absolute 
as  Thinker,  i.nd  is  capable  of  valid  tlusught.  This  is  true  of 
the  finite  as  a  reflective  being  facing  its  world  of  objects.  Tf 
true  indi\i duality  means  the  complete  union  of  thought  with 
its  objects,  then  finite  beings  are  cumpleto  only  in  the  Abso- 
lute. The  temporal  is  'Appearance'  not  reality.^^  The  true 
self  of  each  finite  bcin^•  is  the  Absolute. 

This  Absolute  as  8ul)ject  has  individuated  himself  (''cut 
itself  up"^^)into  the  world  of  individn-ils,  or  "separate  empiri- 
cal sehW\     With  the  passing  of  the  empiricnl.  reunion  of  the 

31.  'The    Religious   Aspect   of    Philosophy"    pp.    433,    435. 

32.  Quoted  from  The  World  and  the  Individual  vol.  I,  pp.  IX  f.  where  Royce  is  re- 
ferring to  this  usage,   in   the  enrlier  work,   of  the  term   Thoupht. 

33.  It  must  be  emphasized  that  Royce  is  not  showing  that  the  finite  is  merely  the 
object  of  the  Absolute  Knowledge  (As  James  interprets  him — see  "A  Pluralistic 
Universe"  p.  36).  The  finite  individual  is  a  constituent  element  of  the  Absolute 
Energy.  (See  Bosanrjuet — "The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value"  p.  372 
note).  As  a  constituent  element  of  the  Ab.solute  mind,  not  na  an  object  of  the 
Absolute  thought,  thought  in  the  finite  is  a  true  "unity  in  variety"  or  variety  in 
unity,   and   is  a   true   fragment   or  part   of  the   Absolute   as   Subject. 

34.  The   Religious   Aspect  of   Philosophy,    p.    156. 

35.  F.  H.  Bradley  in  "Truth  and  Reality"  p.  250  writes:  "We  have  appearance  when- 
ever, and  so  far  as,  the  content  of  anythir.s:  falls  outside  of  its  existence,  its 
'what'  goes  beyond  its  'that'.  You  have  reality  on  the  other  hand  so  far  as  these 
two  a.<?pects  are  inseparable,  and  where  one  may.  porliaps.  be  .said  to  reconstitute 
the  other." 

f^6.    Sep    thi<<    expression — The    Religious    .\si>»'<i    of    PliilusMphy.    ]».    194. 


Botjce  and  Individuation  y^ 

ir,;!!  '^''^l'''  ^f  ""-^  J'""^^-  nothing  of  individual  immor- 
tality. The  part,  as  a  separated  individual,  has  a  temporal 
appcaranco  only.  /  >"  ■' 

•  ^"  *'f  '^T'l  ^'""  ^"^'i"J»af'ng  principle  of  the  Absolute 
IS  present  as  'reflection'  or  as  'finite  thought'.  At  work  in  the 
fin.te,  to  bring  It  to  simplicity  and  unity,  is  found  this  power 
of  thought.  "Moments  of  insight"  give  needed  direction  The 
finire  indivulual  glimpses  his  true  self  and  henceforth  his  aim 

will  of  the  Absolute. 

Finite  •thought-,  then,  is  that  which  marks  the  finite  indi- 
vidual as  man.  Its  active  endeavor  is  to  grasp,  in  unity  and 
simplicity,  the  world  of  objects  beyond  it.^  It'^is  the  inillec- 
tualishc  or  reflective  power  in  the  finite  individual  which  ir, 
meant  Eoyce  in  his  theory  of  the  Absolute  would  trace  thi. 
individuating  thought  back  to  its  eternal  spring.  Whether  or 
not  one  agrees  with  this  Absolutism,  the  doctrine  remains  that 
refection  or  thinking  in  man  individuates  the  finite.  It  is 
that  which  constitutes  him  a  human  being. 


V. 


I  have  given,  somewhat  fully,  the  use  Koyce  makes  of  -the 
possibility  of  error."     In  a  similar  manner,  other  finite  facts 
are  made  to  yield  up  their  ontological  significance.     In  "The 
Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy"   (Book  I.),  the  meaning  of 
ough  ness   is  traced  out.     It  implies  a  world-will,  inclusiv'e  of 
all  wills  and  purposes  as  its  'parts'.-  Finite  wills  are  constituent 
elements  of  this  central  purpose,  not  mere  objects  of  that  pur- 
pose.    This  answer  to  the  moral  demand  construes  the  world 
m  terms  which  meet  the  demands  of  religious  faith.       The 
world  ,s  a  "VVorld  of  Divine  Life".-     This  insight  has  come 
trom  withm  the  finite  consciousness,  not  from  without." 

the  earlier  book    hi  wa.  not  cl^r  .,.:;  Tl\""T'.'^"  "  ""  '™''  ^'  '"»«« 

immaterial  souls  of  men  are  first  individuated  rvthlh.i'  I  '  *'  "'^  *^* 
inclinatio  to  an  individual  bod>  st  11  iSduates  it  onZrlZ-'^^T"^'-  '^^' 
See   the   Conception  of  God,    p.  ^ggj.  ^  '*  ^"  *^^  ^^^^^"^  ^^  ^'^^  empirical 

38.   See  the  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   pp.    ui,   217.   380  f    437    457 
^9.   Ibid   p.    436.      40.      Ihid.    p.    470.  * 


16 


lloyce   and   Individuation 


The  Unite  'self,  with  a  world  of  other  minds  and  objects 
of  its  thought  beyond  the  self,  is  seen  to  be,  in  reality,  one 
with  them.  ''You,  in  one  sense,  never  do  or  can  get  beyond 
your  own  ideas,  nor  ought  you  to  wish  to  do  so,  because  in 
truth  all  those  other  minds,  that  constitute  your  outer  and  real 
world,  are  in  essence  one  with  your  own  self."*^  "Your  total 
of  normal  consciousness  already  has  the  object.""  There  is 
thus  no  prison  of  the  inner  self.  In  thinking,  the  self  actively 
means  or  refers  to  its  object.  It  must  ''in  some  measure  al- 
ready possess  that  object,  enough,  namely,  to  identify  it."*' 
as  what  the  self  means.  Each  finite  self,  imperfect  always  as 
finite,  is  seen  complete  as  the  Absolute.  "There  is,  at  lart, 
but  one  self,  organically,  reflectively  inclusive  of  all  selves, 
and  so  of  all  truth.'^"  "This  Self,*^  infinitely  andreflectively, 
transcends  our  consciousness,  and  therefore  since  it  includes 
us,  it  is,  at  the  very  least,  a  person  and  more  definitely  conscious 
than  we  are. 

In  the  California  Lecture,  the  recognized  incompleteness  of 
human  'experience^  is  ehown  as  implying  a  ^completed'  ex- 
perience. In  finite  experience,  there  is  divorce  between  ideas 
and  their  objects.  In  'Experience',  "true  ideas  are  fulfille«K 
confirmed,  and  verified.'''*'  For  the  xVbsolute,  "All  genuinely 
siirnificant,  all  truly  thinkable  ideas  would  be  seen  as  directly 
fulfilled,  and  fulfilled  in  his  own  experience."** 

The  Absolute  constitutes**  the  initial  or  rather  the  eternal 
individuation  of  selves,  or  wills.     These  finite  selves,  guided 
by  reflection,  seek  actively  to  conquer  or  understand  their  en 
vironing  world.      This  proc^ess  of  experience''**  is  ever  temporally 

-  -^ 

49.  See  "The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy"  p.  462.  "The  Inllnit«  thinks  them". 
See  also   456,    "in   thinking    thee." 

50.  In  this  change  of  terminology  from  'thought'  to  'experience'  we  see  sn  evidence  of 
41.  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,   p.   368.     42.  Ibid.  p.   371.      43.  Ibid.  p.   370. 

44.    Ibid.    p.    379.  . 

45.  We   have    throughout    Royce's    statement   of    the   nature    of   a    'self    an   oscillation 
rather   tha»i   a    truo   passage   from   one   idea   of    'self   to   another.      The   word    'self' 
is  used   in  the  first  place,   of  the  \inity  of  consciousness,   as  opposed  to   the  multi- 
plicity  of   its  content.      It   is   iis-^d   also   in   tht>   sense    of   the   concrete   self   of  finite 

experience.  To  say  that  subject  and  object  are  indivisible  means  simply  that  aa 
object  cannot  be  conceived  except  as  existing  within  a  unity  of  consciousness. 
Here  we  are  dealing  with  knowledge  in  the  abstract  or  so-called  represenUtiye 
sense.  But  when  references  are  made  to  the  concrete  self  and  the  object  is  said 
to  have  no  existence  outside  the  finite  subject,  we  have  the  unity  of  the  other 
meaning  of  self  carried  over  illegitimately.  In  the  concrete  self  there  is  no 
promise  of  that  inclusive  unity  which  implies  that  the  universe  may  be  conceived 
as   a   concrete   experience   or   a   single   consciousness. 

46.  "The  Spirit  of  Modem  Philosophy"  p.  380.  There  is  no  trace  here  of  any  trans- 
mutation of  the  finite  selves  in  being  included.  Bosanquet  (The  Principle  of 
Individuality  and  Value,  i>.  337  f.  See  also  p.  37^1)  criticizes  Royce  on  this 
point. 

47.  "The   Conception    of   Ood"   p.    0.      48.   Ibid.    p.    10. 


i 


Ikuycc    (ind    I ndi rid ualiou  J7 

incomplete.     The  ^parts'  have  always  thus  a  fragmentary  time- 
experience.     Eternally,  each  is  complete  in  or  as  the  Absolute. 

Eeflection  or  thinking  is  that  which  individuates  the  finite 
in  the  time  order.  Insight  enables  the  finite  to  see  his  re- 
lation to  the  whole  and  thus  to  live  his  life  truly  by  seekintr  to 
will  the  Universal  Will.  ^     .^  fe 

The  Absolute,  whether  considered  as  'Thought'  or  'Self  or 
'Experience',  is  a  direct,  immediate  and  eternal  union  of 
Thought  with  its  objects ;  a  Self,  not  merely  thinking  validly, 
but  concretely;  an  Experience  which  is  complete,  its  ideas  eter- 
nally fulfilled.  It  is  this  Absolute  which  individuates"  the 
finite  thinker,  not  as  an  object  of  his  thought,  but  as  a  con- 
stituent element  of  himself  as  Subject.  Just  why  this  individ- 
uation takes  place  we  are  not  informed.      It  is. 

The  finite  'part'  carries  over  into  the  temporal  some  of  the 
same  power  of  individuation.  This  is  'reflection'..  This 
principle  of  individuation  operates  in  the  time-experience  to 
constitute  man  as  individual.  From  the  side  of  consciousness" 
in  the  finite  being,  Royce  would  thus  reach  logically  a  doctrine 
of  a  world -consciousness. 

Divine  Thought  then  is  the  principle  of  individuation  in 
the  universe.  Reflection  is  the  form  in  which  it  apjiears  a^ 
the  'parts'  of  the  Absolute.  The  Divine  Thought  in  its  larger 
implications  is  attained  in  insight  in  the  consciousness'"  of  the 
part. 


t.^^^.^^*^  T  ^*"f'^^J'  current  to-day.  Royce  is  changing  from  a  more  'struc- 
tura  Idea  of  reality  to  a  functional  or  dynamic  one.  Thought  is  being  subor- 
dmated  to  thinking.  Reality  is  being  read  in  dynamic— not  in  static  terms  Now 
just  as  Royce  admits  'thought'  to  be  a  dealing  with  objects  in  some  sense  beyond 
the  tliinker,  so  experience'  setms  equally  to  have  to  do  with  objects  which  are 
outside  m  some  sense.  When  I  possess  a  description  of  reality,  I  am  not  in  direct 
and  immediate  union  with  the  objects  out  there.  Finite  experience  may  be  re- 
garded  as  holding  the  greater  part  of  its  possessions  in  a  representative  -  way. 
A  short  stretch  of  time,  the  present,  is  direct  and  immediate.  Increase  of  Know- 
ledge  means  with  us  not  so  much  the  widening  of  direct  experience  as  the  in- 
crease of  that  which  IS  held  in  a  representative  way.  Completeness  for  us  would 
not  mean  one  single  and  direct  experience  of  the  whole. 

51.   In  the  "Studies   in  Good  and  Evil'  pp.   198-248,   Royce  sets  forth  a  conception  of 
nature   as   an   individual    wiUi   an    apperceptive    span   different   from   man's. 

^^'   1°  "Impl»<^*tion8  of  Self  Consciousness"  in   "Studies  in  Good  and   Evil"   pp    140- 
168,    Royce   has   further   outlined   this   argument. 

Sa.   See  The  Religious  Aspect   of  Philosophy,   p,   470. 


I  i 


f^-avtH^^^ 


18 


lioyce   and   Indivuluation 


Uoiji-e    caul    Judh'idualiuii 


ISi 


ClIAl^rKK    IIT. 


Criliral. 


I. 


Till'  interest  in  tliis  period  of  our  author's  work  center.-, 
aromid  the  proof  of  the  reality  of  an  Absolute.  It  raised  other 
questions  which  it  leaves  unanswered.  The  individii avion, 
initiated  in  and  hv  the  Absolute,  is  only  treated  ineidentallv. 
Where,  in  such  an  Absolute,  ])rovisio'n  is  made  for  the  reality 
of  the  finite,  is  a  question  that  can  also  be  raised.  Of  this 
latter  problem  only  a  little  will  be  said  here.  Fuller  notice 
will  be  taken  of  it  in  Part  IT.  It  persists  throughout  Royce^s 
work. 

Ft  seems  clearlv  our  author's  view  that  reality,  as  Thought, 
is  thought  fully  and  concretely  fulfilled,  a  completed  experience, 
idea  in  perfect  union  with  its  object  in  one  eternal  instant. 
It  is  not  clear  where  in  such  a  finished  universe  there  is  a-ny 
place  for  free  individuals  even  as  mere  thinkers,  to  say  nothing 
of  real  activity  on  the  part  oi  the  finite.*  A  completed  ex- 
perience would  seem  to  leave  no  room  for  even  such  noveltif^s 
as  a  movement  of  reflective  thought  which  is  a  kind  of  experi- 
ence. It  is  submitted  that  in  a  finished  universe,  or  in  a  com- 
pleted experience,  there  is  no  reality  in  'time  experience'  or 
*free-  individuals.  It  docs  not  make  it  less  impossible,  to 
postulate  Vlegrees  of  re^dity'.  If  my  thinking,  as  psychical 
fact,  and  mv  activities  involving  the  environing  world,  are  ?1] 
there  eternally,  it  seems  impossible  to  account  for  my  sense 
of  pioneering,  of  resiMaisibility.  Or  does  the  Whole  take  ?/dre 
to  provide  even  this  ^feeling'  of  being  free  ? 

W^e  have  noted  already  that  Royce  does  not  think  of  the 
finite  consciousness  as  the  object  of  the  thought  of  the  Absolute 
but  as  a  constituent  element  of  the  Absolute  as  Subject.  It 
participates  in  the  nature  of  the  Absolute.  If  this  Subject, 
individuated  into  constituent  elements,  is  eternally  fulfilled  in 


I 


Its  object,  then  fl.e  'parts'  are  fulfilled  also.     There  is  to  be  no 
.lupheation  of  thought  or  experience.     Time-experience  seems 
some  Lsolated  extra,  nnaecountablv  thrown  in.       If  the  'parts' 
as  such,  are  not  eternally  fulfilled,  then  their  fulfilment  in  time 
may  be  real,  but  rmly  at  the  expense  of  the  'finishedness'  of  the 
world      Inasniuch  as  Prof.  IJoyce  would  cling,  as  a  point  of 
departure,  to  finite  fact,  it  would  seem  contradictory  to  rea^h 
logically  a  position  which  would  enable  him  to  count  the  poi-it 
of  departure  something  less  than  real.     In  view  of  the  lar^c 
place  given  in  the  later  jKM-iods  to  the  work  and  activities  o^^ 
men  ami  society,  we  must  believe  that  Koyce  counts  the  finite 
individual  as  real.     A  "completed  experience"  however  makes 
the  growing,  changing  finite  less  than  real.. 

If  one  is  to  keep  in  touch  with  finite  exi)ericnce  while  tr-ie- 
ing  out  the  logical  boundaries,  it  might  be  objected  that  in 
finite  experience  a   'compli-ted   experience'   is  one  which   ha- 
ended  an.l  is  already  past.     Our  experiences  have  that  way 
of  passing  as  they  are  completed.     Just  what  an  experience 
eternally  complete  and  eternally  present  would  mean  is  some- 
Hung    an  analogy  for  which  I  ,lo  not  find  in  my  experience. 
un  the  other  hand,  experience  presents  us  with  many  instances 
where  one's  mind  or  purpose  becomes  so  clear-cut'  and  well- 
defined  that  as  an  active  purpose  it  functions  without  inner 
change.      It  has  become  a  fixed  principle.     Finite  experience 
presents  us  with  a  tendency  to  a  reasonable  and  unchangin- 
identity  in  the  indindual  as  he  embodies  his  life-purpose  and 
produces  novelties  in  life-content.       Might  we  not  think  of  .a 
world  infinitely  unfinished,  of  a  fully-defined^  and  hence  .ib 
solutely   unchanging   Purpose,   embodying   itself  in   this   uni- 
verse ?     The  identity  would  move  forward  unchanged      This 
would  leave  room  for  free  individuals  and  a  real  time-experi- 
ence.       The   contributions   of   the    free    individual,    however 
infinitesimally  small,  would  yet  be  real.     It  is  enough  at  this 
point  to  sho^v  that  a  real  finite  and  a  completed  'Experience' 
are  incompatible. 


Hy  Jones  in  the  "Hibberf  .Toumal"'  vol,  I,  No.  I,  in  reviewing  Royce's  Oifford 
Lectures  says  "He  adopts  Mr.  Bradley's  doctrine  of  thought  and,  from  that  point 
of  view,  the  substitution  of  the  categories  whole  and  pairt  for  those  of  appearance 
and  reality  is  not  possible,  not-  therefore  a  positive  defence  of  both  the  finite  a  id 
ttio    infinite." 


It  would  be  necessary  to  note  that  a  fully-defined  purpose  or  principle  in  thp  flni^A 
18   not  one    which   is  formulated   in   exact   detail   as   to   it^lJ^l^         ^^^■  o® 

the  perfectly  defined  Purpose  or  Will  o1  thtAb^  lutV^  'ZTtl  bf  ont i^ed  a^ 
fixing  before-hand  the  complete  manner  of  its  application.  conceived  as 


3. 


I  '» 


20 


liOf/cc  and  Individual  to  it 


Ii()ijC(j  (ind  I ndividiialion 


■11 


II. 


According  to  this  logic  of  Trof.  Koyce,  he  demonstrates  tlie 
nature  and  existence  of  a  Being  in  full  and  perfect-union 
with  the  objects  of  his  thought.  The  demonstration  is  based 
on  the  nature  of  finite  thought.  This  logic  is  open  to  question 
for  this  so-called  concrete  union  finds  no  analogy  in  the  finite. 

I  find  in  my  experience  that  the  conditions  of.  truth  and 
error  involve  in  me  an  ever  widening  knowledge  of  reality.  I 
have  a  focus  in  consciousne:?s  and  it  gives,  no  doubt,  a  short 
stretch  of  direct  experience.  But  attention,  as  I  possess  it. 
must  know  continual  change.  1  find  that  much  of  the  interest 
of  life  consists  in  passing  to  new  phases  of  experience.  Tliat 
which  is  passed  is  carried  over  ])y  me  in  some  sort  of  represen- 
tative way.  My  experience,  per  se,  does  not  show  any  signs 
of  such  widvMiin'g  as  might  mean,  as  an  ultimate,  the  one  fixed 
vision  of  tlie  \vh<de.  The  conditions  of  attention  would  be 
violated  and  the  senile  of  monotony  rather  tlian  interest  woidd 
result. 

When  I  look  at  this  dinn^t  exi)erience,  I  find  that  while 
directly  or  concretely  present  it  is  not  actual  nnion  with  or 
immanence  of  myself  in  the  objects.  Indeed  the  objects  ever 
remain  beyond  my  thought  which  remains  always  a  thought 
of  reality.'  There  is  no  basis  then  for  the  concrete  union 
ascribed  to  Thought. 

It  is  rather  jiu  ever  widening  knowledge  of  reality,  rather 
than  experience  of  it,  Vvdiich  is  found  to  be  significant  in  my 
experience.  There  is  the  diflerence  between  the  representation 
of  the  thought  of  reality  as  experienced  in  the  past  and  the 
present.  It  is  a  difTereuce  of  time  rather  than  a  difference 
involving  in  present  experience  a  direct  union  with  reality. 
I  know  I  have  seen  a  book.  It  was  yesterday.  Right  now  T 
see  it  again.  My  thought  has  been  compared  with  the  per 
ception  in  either  case.  In  the  former  case,  psychology  tells 
us  there  comes  up  some  physiological  representative  of  the 
former  perception.  In  the  latter  case,  I  have  the  original  per- 
ception present.  But  now  in  either  case  very  much  more  is 
involved  in  the  physical  book  than  my  perceiving  and  thinkiiig 
of  it.  As  a  concrete  thing  it  has  not  been  in  complete  union 
with  my  thought.  My  perception  of  the  book  indicates  +hat 
it   is  there  apart  from   any  ])rivate  experience  of  mine.      Tlie 


] 


object  of  my  thought  will  not  be  literally  the  book  and  all  it 
actually  is.  But  I  know  that  this  object  of  my  thought,  this 
intellectual  <!ontent,  has  reference  to  a  real  object  in  the  exis- 
tent or  physical  world. 

Our  thought,  with  its  proiilems  of  truth  and  error,  does  imply 
a  completed  unity.  It  is  the  unity  of  a  whole  of  hnowledge. 
It  is  not  a  single  and  complete  experience  of  reality,  but  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  reality.  But  this  is  an  ideal.  No  doubt 
it  implies  the  bringing  together  of  all  reality  within  a  single 
whole.  It  is  not  however  there  literally  and  physically,  but 
in  knowledge  form."* 

Only  in  this  form  of  a  moving  ex{)erience  and  an  accumu- 
lating of  knowledge  of  realitv,  do  we  seem  to  do  iustice  to 
other  psychological  features.  It  is  not  possible  to  feel  uncer- 
tainty and  cjrtainty  on  the  same  point  and  feel  them  simul- 
taneously. All  the  personal  sense  of  ignorance,  evil  or  error, 
implies  other  experiences  in  which  they  may  be  overcome.  My 
actual  feelings  of  ignorance  and  of  recovery  from  it  imply  a 
widening  knowledge  through  further  experiences.  To  crowd 
lx)th  into  a  single  experience  as  contemporaries  is  to  do  injus- 
tice to  the  psychological  coloring  of  the  facts..  A  sense  of  error 
and  of  truth  recovered  belongs  to  a  part  of  reality,  not  to  the 
whole.  The  former  carries  its  own  coloring  or  feeling  tone 
which  cannot  be  transferred  to  another. 

My  point  is  this,  that  our  thought  is  ever  an  ideal  represen- 
tation of  reality,  never  an  actual  or  concrete  nnion  with  it 
Logic  cannot  give,  on  the  basis  of  finite  facts,  such  concrete 
union.  Only  a  conceptual  contrast,  based  on  the  wholeness 
yet  limited  nature,  of  finite  experience  as  direct  and  immediate, 
can  give  the  conception  of  some  synoptic  vision  that  in  an  in- 
stant might  envisage  the  totality.  And  such  can  be  but  a  con- 
ception or  imaginative  presentation.. 

If  one  wishes  to  round  out  logically,  on  the  basis  of  finite 
thought,  the  nature  of  reality,  one  might  hold  that  there  is  at 
least  a  society  of  knowers  or  selves.  Certainly  one  advances 
beyond  his  knowledge  and  its  logic  when  he  postulates  an  all- 
inclusive  Thought  or  Selfconsciousness.  We  have  no  fin'te 
experience  furnishing  an  analogy  of  a  self  or  consciousness 
having  such  an  experiential  relation  to  the  objects  of  its  thought 

4.     The    Philosophical   Review    (1903)    p.    48    f,    A.    K.    Rogers   on    Prof.    Royre   »nd 
Monism. 


,« 


22 


lloyce    and    Induulualioa 


1 

ft 

i 


lloijce    and    1  tali cidaal ion 


2:\ 


that  there  is  no  traiis-subjective  reference.     Closing  that  gap 
is  not  the  looic  of  existent  facts  bnt  a  conceptual  construction. 

in. 

The  other  (iuestiou  left  i.nii)igu(ais  is  that  of  the  principle 
of  individuation.     The  possible  embodiments  of  finite  thought 
seem  indefinitely  ninny'  when  viewed  conceptually.   'Thought' 
or  the  Absolute 'includes  not  only  all  actual  experiences  but  all 
possible  experiences.     This  would  seem  to  mean  'innumerable' 
worlds.      But  we  have  in  reahly  one  world.     Reflection  pre- 
sents  us  witli   alternatives   which,    if  not  equally   acceptable, 
seem   equally    possible.     Royce    discusses'   the   simpler    forms 
of  knowledge  and  indiciites  the  positive  or  active  nature  of  the 
mental  process.     The  mind  seeks  unity  and  simplicity.     Atten 
tion  ''fixes  on  only  a  portion  of  the  field  at  a  time.''     It  makes 
a     difference     to     sense-impressions     whether     or     not     they 
are     in     the     focus     of     coiisciousness.        Attention     is     ac- 
tive     in      increasing     and      diminishing     the      intensity      ol: 
impressions.     The  measure  of  effort  which  accompanies  atten- 
tion affects  qualitatively  the  impression  received.      ''Attention 
is  the  same  activity  that'in  a  more  developed  shape  we  coinmonly 
call  will."     Attention,   in  thus  narrowing  our  focus,   "males 
all  our  knowing  and  believing  possible."     Along  with  attention 
we  find  recognition.     It  too  tends  to  alter  the  data  of  sense  to- 
wards order  and   simplicity.     Our  interest  also  will  be  seen 
as  affecting  our  resultant  knowledge.     Thus  "the  most  insig- 
nificant knowledge  is  in  some  sense  an  original  product  of  the 
man  who  knows."    In  it  is  expressed  his  disposition,  his  power 
of  attention,  his  skill  in  recognition,  his  interest  in  reality,  his 
creative  might  "  ' 

Here  we  have  an  aspect  of  the  finite  which,  with  the  greater 
emphasis  of  the  second  period,  developed  into  the  Voluntarism 
for  which  Royce  stands  in  the  academic  world.  It  explains 
the  selective  nature  of  finite  thought.  But  the  selectiveness  is 
far  from  absolute.      Other  possibilities  linger  on  the  horizon. 

Reflection  guides  the  finite  individual.     The  sense  of  diroc 
tion  is  reached   in  ''Moments  of  Insight".     These  short-lived 


o. 

6. 

7. 


Roycp.   in  the  next  period,    writes  -It  is  of  the  r.ature  of  pure  or  abstract  think- 
ing to   deal   with  endless   possibilities."     'The   Conception  of  God    p.    193. 
The   Relizioa^   Aspect   of   Philosophy,   pp.   308-323.  ^      *^    ,  .        » 

F  H  Bradl  >y  denied  that  any  of  our  categories  apply  to  the  Absolute.  Royce 
oerees  with  legard  to  physical  cateRorics  only.  The  categories  expressive  of  the 
human  individual  are  applicable.  At  least  he  claims  to  carry  over  these  .-at- 
gori.s.  It  is  a  criticism  offer,  d  in  this  thesis  that  the  categories  of  the  finite  nro 
not  carried  across  unchanged. 


I 


moments  reveal  in  ideal  the  fruition  of  the  categories'  followed 
laboriously  by  reflection.  The  ^oneness'  of  the  world  is  an 
open  book  in  the  moment  of  insight  but  the  way  to  it  is  not 
so  clear.  Reflective  thought,  with  its  point  of  departure  in 
finite  fact,  does  not  make  clear  how  'Thought'  constitutes  otic 
world  and  finds  complete  fulfilment  in  it.  Reflection  takes  up 
its  task  where  individuation  has  alreadv  done  much  of  its  work 
We  are  conscious  before  we  are  self-conscious. 

The  treatment,  given  above  of  attention  and  recognition 
and  interest,  seems  psychological  rather  than  metaphysical.  In 
the  acquisition  of  new  knowledge,  we  are  affected  by  our  previ 
ous  experiences.  We  hold  our  past  in  a  vicarious  way,  in 
images  or  kinesthesis  or  in  some  other  symbolic  form.  One 
might  say  that  our  history  is  one  where  each  new  experience 
has  its  effect  on  the  psychic  organism  and  helps  to  constitute 
one's  psychic  attitude.  But  I  carry  the  objects  of  ray  know- 
ledge in  a  vicarious  way,  not  in  the  concrete  direct  way  of  im- 
mediate  union  with  them  which  is  ascribed  to  'Thought'.  We 
do  not,  in  our  thinking  of  the  world  of  objects,  reach  such 
union  with  the  real  objects  as  to  c*<3nstitute  or  reconstitute  them 
what  they  are.  Finite  thinking,  as  such,  does  not  imply  this 
individuating  or  constitutive  power  ascribed  to  Thought. 

There  is  a  distinction  which  we  must  not  ignore  between  the 
object  as  it  enters  our  limited  life  of  immediate  experience, 
and  the  object  as  it  exists  in  a  world  which  we  reconstruct  in- 
directly by  thought  and  whose  connections  are  independent  of 
our  practical  teleology.  One  must  separate  carefully  between 
the  real  world  and  the  knowledge  of  the  world  which  one  p«  s- 
sesses.  Connections  exist  objectively  in  the  real  w^orld.  But 
in  my  experience  I  make  connections.  Only  in  this  practical, 
teleologicala^  way  does  cause  enter  into  the  constitution  of 
'finite  experience'.  Existence  for  knowledge,  and  existence  for 
experience  are  not  essentially  convertible  terms.  It  seems  to 
me  that  Royce  makes  them  synonymous.  There  is  never  that 
immediate  presence  of  reality  in  the  very  thought-experience 
of  finite  beings.     Reality  is  brought  home  to  us  by  a  thought 

8.  There  may  be  two  meanings  given  to  teleology.  It  may  imply  an  end  to  the 
action  as  a  distinct  result.  Here  the  activity  itself  is  only  a  means  to  that  cud. 
All  positive  value  will  lie  in  the  result  —  not  in  the  activity.  This  seems  to  me 
to  make  the  essence  of  reality  a  static  fact.  Progress  would  be  only  a  mere  inci- 
dent in  attaining  the  end.  The  second  meaning  is  that  the  end  is  actually  realiz- 
ing itself  in  life.  There  is  value  in  the  process  per  se.  It  is  not  a  question 
merely  of  a  finished  result  or  attainment.  Royce  in  'Thought',  'Self  or  'Exper- 
ience' seems  to  imply  the  former  type  of  teleology,  whereas  in  finite  experience  it 
is  clearly  the  latter  which  is  present. 


24 


lioyce   and   I ndlcidnailon 


llojie   and   Individual  10 II 


■mi 'J 


distinct  from  it.  llonco  it  is  no  logic  but  a  bare  contrast  tliat 
enables  Eoyce  to  see  in  finite  ^experience'  that  which  logically 
implies  an  Absolute,  or  a  direct  and  immediate  experience. 

IV. 

A  furrher  qnestiim  which  will  be  more  fully  treated  in  Part 
II.  relates  to  the  ideal  of  duty  held  up  to  the  finite  individual. 
As  a  part"  of  the  infinite  Subiect,  and  on  l>ecoming  aware,  in  ins 
consciousness,  of  this  relation  to  the  whole,  his  supreme  task 
is  to  will  the  Universal  Will.  He  must  thus  return  into  the 
life  of  the  whole. 

One  mav  call  this  a  doctrine  of  self-alienation  for  one  must 
seek  -impersonal"^'  ends.  Selt>onsciousness  would  seem  to  carry 
with  it  the  ideal  of  self-negation  or  resignation  as  its  true  direc- 
tion. Xow  in  theory  this  might  seem  plausible.  But  in  actunl 
life  the  springs  of  action  are  ever  personal.  There  will  bo 
carried  over  at  the  start  of  a  life  where  the  self  is  sunk  in  the 
universal  will  somethini-  of  the  impetus  which  will  rise  froTU 
the  choice  as  personal.  Ihit  it  is  true  to  life  that  such  impetus 
will  wane. 

One  mioht  indeed  deubt  whether  altruism  as  an  iih'al  is 
not  both  abstract  and  unreal.  Self-love  takes  many  formt^. 
Altruism  is  one  of  them.  It  is  very  d^mbtful  if  it  is  the 
highest. 

Royce  notes  that  we  learn  the  moaning  of  the  Divine 
Thought  in  our  consciousness.^'  It  will  bear  all  the  niarks  of 
a  pers'onal  interpretation  and  of  spontaneous  origination.  How 
one  may  make  another  aware  of  its  impaitiality  or  imperson- 
ality scims  problematic.  Not  only  so  but,  mediated  through 
human  consciousness,  it  will  come  forth  in  all  sorts  of  partial 
forms.  Which  shall  the  individual  follow,  his  own  or 
another's  ?     Which  is  most  like  the  archetype  ? 

Prof.  Rovce  would  no  doubt  say  that  no  one  finite  wiP, 
as  finite,  represents  the  Universal  Wiil.  It  seems  then  on- 
will  have  left  just  the  bare,  empty  will  to  have  the  Universal 

9      In  the   Supplementary   Essay   in  Vol.    I   of   the   Gifford   Lectures   Royce   i"u8trates 
he  part-whole  relation   from  the  analogy  of  self-represent.tive  ^^J^^^^   ^^^^^J^^^^ 
matics       The  part  is  equal  to  or  is  the  image  of  the  whole.      It  may  be  that  Koyce 
Spends  the   illustration  to   be  more   than   an  analogy.     But   in   a   true   infinite   the 
nd"rduated  eh^ment  images  the  whole,  not  in  a  wooden  ---^o-one  coireBpondence 
but  in  a  differentiated  response  to  organic   necessities.      See   on   th^  point  Bosan- 
q^et  "'The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value"  pp.   38.   393  f.     The  mathem.ti 
cal  system   is  abstract  or   empty   of  content.     The   true  infinite   .8  ^"^^^'^te. 
10    See  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  211.  212.  213.      11.  Ibid.  p.  470. 


Will,  the  will  that  there  shall  be  such  a  WilP^  As  this  is  an 
ideal  rather  than  an  embodied  fact,  to  which  one  may  givo 
adherence,  it  seems  impossible  to  get  away  actually  from  ^'per- 
sonal" aims  and  ideals.  If  the  Infinite  Subject  has  individuat- 
ed into  a  world  of  finite  individuals,  will  not  these  'parts'  be 
such  in  reality  only  when  as  "parts'  they  achieve  a  richer  in- 
dividual content?  It  is  something  to  give  one's  life  to  the  whole. 
Can  one  do  more  ?  Yes.  By  having  more  to  give.  This  will 
l>e  found  in  a  greater  emphasis  on  the  final  value  of  the  personal. 

12.   Wo  have  here  not  an  attaining  of  a  concrete   will,   but,   by  means   of  a  contract 

:  based   on   the  imperfection  or   incompleteness  of  the  finite,    an  outlining   in   concep- 

^  tion  of  a  perfect  or  complete  finite.      Thus  we  have  not  escaped  from  the  personal. 


26 


Eoyce   and   Individuaiwn 


Jloi/ce    and   Indl c Iduai iu n 


.li 


Period  IL 

nr  \rTKK  tv. 

Exposition. 
I. 

In  'The  Conception  of  God',  the  Supplementary  Essay  i> 
Koyce's  answer  to  the  question  on  individuation.     Then  in  the 
Gifford  Lectures,  he  gives  in  complete  form  his  whole  meta 
physical  position. 

The  difference  between  pure  or  abstract  thinking  and  con- 
crete thinking  or  'Thought'  lies  in  the  Will  or  Purpose.'  Pure 
reflection  presents  no  mystery.  In  Will  one  passes  beyond 
the  merely  conceptual  or  the  contemplative.  Will  is  activr 
and  involves  other  elements  than  reflection.^  It  is  not  irra 
tional.  Yet  it  may  not  make  explicit  its  implicit  reasons.  Sc' 
the  kernel  of  indiViduality  is  Will.  Or  better,  the  organiz- 
ing, individuating  principle  is  Will.  ''The  satisfied  Will,  as  such, 
is  the  sole  Principle  of  Individuation.'"  "Experience  always 
determines  the  infinite  universals  of  thought  to  concrete  in- 
dividual examples.  Thought,  on  the  other  hand,  even  when 
it  defines  the  contents  of  experience,  always  does  so  by  viewing 
them  as  individual  cases  of  an  infinite  series  of  possible  case=."* 
''In  this  sense,  the  individuahty,  the  concrete  reality,  of  the 
contents  of  the  Absolute  Experience,  must  be  conceived  as,  on 
the  one  hand,  fulfilling  ideas,  but  as  on  the  other  hand  freely, 
unconstrainedly,— ifyou  will,  caiyriciously,—emhodymg  tiieir 
universality  in  the  verv  fact  of  the  presence  of  this  life,  this 
experience,  this  world. ''^ 

The  reality  of  the  Absolute  is  demonstrated  in  the  Roycean 
way,  by  a  consideration  of  the  relation  of  thought  and  its  ob- 
ject in  connection  wdth  realistic  theories.     The  'independence* 


1.  In  Munsterberg's  "GrundzuRe  der  Psychologie"  pp.  44-45,  it  is  held  that  the 
dot-isive  step  in  the  mutual  contact  in  experiencing  our  fellow  men,  ib  in  the  will 
rather  than  in  the  intellect. 

2.  G.  K.  Chesterton  has  noted  this  when  he  tells  us  th»t  it  is  idle  to  argue  with  the 
choice   of   the    soul. 

3.  "The  World  and  the  Individual"  vol.   I,   p.   586. 

4.  'The  Conception  of  God"  p.    194.      5.   Ibid.  p.  203. 
p.   186  f.      (Italics  are  mine). 


•  and  the  'relation'  of  the  objects  'beyond'   indicate  the  larger 

•  and  inclusive  experience  where  thought  is  adequate  to  the 
object;  "a  Unity  not  bound  to  the  limitations  of  our  own  flow 
of  successive  and  numerically  separate  experiences,  although 
inclusive,  both  of  this  flow,  and  of  these  various  experiences 
themselves, — in  their  very  fragmentariness,— but  also  in  their 
relationsliips."^  'Omniscience'  or  'Thought'  is  the  best  term 
''to  define  the  Absolute."'  P>ut  the  purely  theoretical  definition 
must  be  completed.  Ue  ])ie})ares  for  this  crjiiiplorion  by  an 
examination  of  the  nature  of  finite  Will. 

Will   involves   ''Desire,    Choice,    and   Efiicacious   Effort."- 

De.-ire  alyne  may  be  cn])rici<iis,  though  desire  is  at  the  root  of 

.    will.     "Unless  I  first  desire,  I  shall  never  get  any  of  the  more 

complex  and  rational  processes  of  the  will."**     Choice  is  a  more 

rational  level,  but  may  remain  only  a  mental  process.     It  calls 

•  logically  for  effective  expression.  This  expression  may  be 
estimated  in  kinesthesis  only.  Will  involves  a  higher  element. 
It  is  "Attention".*^  Our  voluntary  processes  are,  in  all  their 
grades,  selective  rather  than  inventive.  Consciousness  has  a 
focus  and  to  direct  the  focus  upon  some  part  of  the  field  of 
vision  is  to  cause  that  spot  to  come  out  more  clearly  and  the 
rest  to  sink  into  obscurity.  Attention  is  selective  and,  in  its 
selection,  the  limitless  possibilities  of  fulfilment  of  the  idea 
pass  away  as  the  one  concrete  choice  is  made.  This  significant 
(^hoice  is  in  the  finite  ever  less  than  complete.     But  the  direc- 

I  tion  of  will  is  evident.       The  limitless  or  endless  conceptual 
,  possibilities  become  embodied  in  the  one  concrete.        It  is  a 
'  limitation  in  the  abstract  but  a  distinct  expansion  in  the  con- 
crete.    "Experience  always  determines  the  infinite  liniversais 
of  thought  to  concrete  individual  examples."^ ^ 

This  conception  of  the  will,  filled  out  logically,  implies  that 
^vhile  we  may  abstractly  think  of  the  ideas  of  the  Absolute  as 
liaving  infinite  possibilities  of  embodiment;  vet  there  is  an  Ab- 
solute "Arrest"  of  such  possibilities.  The  one  world  embodies 
fully  the  ideas  of  the  Absolute.  Our  embodiment  of  ideas 
never  attains  this  absolute  arrest.  In  the  case  of  the  Absolute, 
further  conceptual  ])ossibilitie3  are  absolutely  unreal.  Just 
why  the  one  world  must  thus  realise  fully  the  ideas  of  the 
Absolute,  we  cannot  know\     There  is  here  to  the  spectator  the 


6.  Ibid.  p.   178.      7.    Ibid 


Tho  Conception  of  (iod.    p.    187.      9.   Ibid.   p.    187.      10.   Ibid 


191. 


2b 


lloyce    and   Indii  iduaUon 


presence  of  'caprice'.'^     The  caprice  lies  in  this,  that  the  act 
of  the  will  as  a  mental  process  is  hidden  from  the  onlooker. 

This  embodiment  is  ''an  organized,  significant,  purposeful, 
or  teleological,  worthy  perfect  whole  of  fact."'*  "The  Will 
individuates  according  to  its  own  needs ;  and  if  it  needs,  for  its 
fulfilment,  free  individuals,  it  will  possess  them/''*  The 
Universal  Will  thus  individuates  a  world  of  free  individual^.'' 
This  initial  or  eternal  individuation  shows  its  presence  in  the 
finite  individual  in  his  will.     He  is  a  free  individual. 

This  ability  of  the  finite  selves  to  have  interests  which  arc 
focussed, — exclusive  interests, — is  that  which  individuates  in- 
dividuals in  the  time-experience.  In  developing  aims,  object^ 
or  ideals,  we  are  out  of  the  chaos  of  more  primitive  levels  of 
life.  We  are  making  ourselves  significant  individuals.  ''It 
is  by  an  individuating  or  exclusive  interest  in  living  one  lifc; 
for  one  purpose,  that  a  man  l)ecomes  a  moral  individual,  one 
self,  and  not  a  mere  collection  of  empirical  social  contrast 
efifects."'^  We  are  real  as  we  are  thus  individuated.  To  be 
individual  is  to  "be  unique.'"' 

Now  while  the  world  of  individuals  has  been  individuated, 
not  by  the  thought  but  by  the  Love,  Interest,  and  Will  of  the  Ab- 
solute, yet  "Divine  Omniscience  is  fulfilled  in  the  world  whicli 
Divine'Love  individuates.''''  Thus  "individuality,  in  such  a 
world  would  neither  be  absorbed  in  one  indistinct  whole  nor 
yet  be  opaque  fact,  for  the  exclusive  Love  of  the  Absolute  for 
this  world  would  render  the  individuality  of  the  fact  secondarily 
intelligible  as  being  the  fulfilment  of  the  very  exclusiveness  of 
the  love."""  In  this  original  endowment  of  individuality  con- 
ferred by  the  Absolute,  the  individual  has  his  distinctiveness.''^ 


Roycc    and    Individual  ion 


^0 


11. 

14. 

15. 


Tho  Conception  oi  God,  p.   212.      12.   Ibid.    p.  202.      13.   Ibid.  p.  210. 
"The  Conception  of  God"  p.   271. 

This  view  puts  central  significance  in  God's  Will  or  Purpose  in  the  initial  "sun- 
dering" of  himself.  An  argument  which  seems  to  have  influenced  Prof.  Royce  to 
make  this  change  of  emphasis  on  the  element  of  Will  is  found  in  the  criticism  by- 
Prof.  Le  Conte  (see  "The  Conception  of  God"  p.  76  f.)  Taking  Thought  in  the 
sense  of  thought,  reflective,  contemplative,  'powerless',  he  sees  no  explanation  of 
why  this  particular  sort  of  world  is  the  embodiment  of  that  thought.  He  gives 
his  evolutionary  conception  of  God's  purpose.  Divine  Energy  has  sundered  itself 
in  order  to  have  something  to  contemplate  and  ultimately  to  love.  This  sunder'^ri 
Divine  Energy,  the  immanence  of  God  in  nature,  rises  through  various  levels  until 
in  man,  in  self-conciousness,  there  is  the  birth  into  the  spiritual  world,  where  man 
holds  communion  with   Deity. 

16.  'The  Conception  of  God'  p.  265. 

17.  "The  Conception  of  God"  p.   268.      18.  Ibid.  p.   259.      19.  Ibid.  p.    266. 

20.  Though  will  is  looted  in  desire  and,  in  untutored  nature,  is  liable  to  all  sorts  of 
whims  and  caprices,  yet,  in  the  will  of  the  intelligent,  the  caprice  is  not  of  this 
sort.  It  is  the  unpredictable  expression  of  a  free  being.  It  is  necessary  to  note 
that  the  highest  in  man  is  thus  linked  back  to  the  desires  which,  untutored,  give 
'anarchy'.  In  the  true  individual,  desire  is  not  extirpated  but  put  in  its  proper 
place. 


23 


I  It  is  not  then  just  as  Mhinker'  that  the  finite  individual  is  the 

image  of  the  whole.     ''The  Absolute  individuates  the  lives  of 

,  A  and  B  by  virtue  of  interests,  of  forms  of  will  and  of  self- 

1  consciousness,  which  are  difl'erent  for  A  and  I).""     Such  in- 

I  dividuation  is  not  a  mere  fiat  but  appears  in  the  development 

i  of  individual  will.     ''The  individuating  will  of  any  person,  as 

I  this  person,  is  expressed  from  moment  to  moment,  in  his  more 

J  or  less  conscious  intention  to  view  his  life  as  a  struggle  towards, 

•  and  consequently  as  in  contrast  with,  his  ideal  goal.""     The 

Absolute  Will,  in  individuating  a  Avill,  has  not  predetermined 

in  the  physical  sense  the  temporal  sequence  of  its  acts.' 


IL 


Having  made  definite  his  conception  that  the  world-primary 
is  Purpose  or  Will,  Royce  gives  us  in  the  Gifford  Lectures  a 
full  system  of  metaphysics  on  this  basis. 

The  Absolute  is  the  "Individual  of  Individuals"  and  "the 
[satisfied  Will,  as  such,  is  the  sole  Principle  of  Individuation.'"* 

lloyce    approaches  the   problem    of   the    nature   of   reality 
[through  the  medium  of  ideas.     His  first  question  is  not,  WHiat 
Jis  reality  ?  but  "What  is  an  Idea  1  and  How  can  Ideas  stand 
in  any  true  relation  to  reality?"  To  start  with  reality  makes  fail- 
ure certain.       "Begin  by  accepting the  mere  brnte 

reality  of  the  world  as  fact,  and  there  you  are,  sunk  in  an  ocean 

of  mysteries The  world  as  fact  now  bewilders  vou.  . 

l>y  a  chaos  of  unintelligible  fragments  and  of  scattered 

<'vonts;  now  it  lifts  up  your  heart  with  wondrous  glimpses  of 
ineffable  goodness,  and  now  it  arouses  your  wrath  by  frightful 

t^igns  of  cruelty  and  baseness."     It  is  a  "defiant  mystery 

3)ersistently  baffling,  unless  we  find  somewhere  the  key  to  it.""'' 

We  must  "assert  the  primacy  of  the  world  as  Idea  over  the 
World  as  Fact,"  and  "deal  with  the  problem  of  reality  from 
the  side  of  the  means  through  which  we  are  supposed  to  be 
Me  to  attain  reality,  that  is,  from  the  side  of  Ideas."  "What 
then  is  an  Idea  ?  and  how  can  an  Idea  be  related  to  Real- 


}tv  ?"= 


P.    317. 


!l."The  Conception  of  God"   p.    312.      22.    Ibid.   p.   31G.      23.    Ibid 

54.  "The  World  and  the  Individual"  vol.   I,   pp.   40  and   586. 

15.  "The  World  and  the  Individual"  I,  p.  16.     26.  Ibid.I,  pp.   17,   18.     27     Ibid     I 

p.   i;>.  .         .    . 


ao 


lloycc    and   Indiildualluu 


Jlojjce   and  Individual  ion 


:J1 


The  essence  of  an  idea  does  not  consist  in  representing  a 
fact  existent  beyond  itself.     This  is  the  ordinary  view.     Its 
primary  and  inner  character  does  not  lie  in  the  objective  refer- 
ence, in  that  it  images  or  symbolizes  or  in  any  other  way  indi- 
cates external  facts  or  events.      Ideas  express  the  active  sidt 
of  life  rather  than  the  receptive  or  sensory.     The  elements  con- 
stituting our  ideas  have  been  selected  under  the  guidance  of  a 
purpose.     It  is  the  voluntary  purpose  that  organizes  the  ele 
ments  of  an  idea  into  a  unity  as  well  as  chooses  them.     Idea 
are  primarily  'pla'ns  of  action'  and  represent  intentions.  "Idea.^ 
have  the  significance  of  an  act  of  will."     In  brief  an  idea  i^ 
"any  state  of  consciousness  whether  simple  or  complex,  which, 
when  present,  is  then  and  there  viewed  as  at  least  the  partiii 
expression  or  embodiment  of  a  single  conscious  purpose.""     . 
pen  is  really  defi'ned  by  its  use.     The  intrinsic  meaning  of  i 
flows  from  the  purpose  of  an  agent. 

Ideas  arc  secondarily  representative  of  objects.  This  ^exter 
naF  or  objective  meaning  would  seem  to  be  the  one  of  mo^ 
significance.  Validity  and  value  as  truth  cannot  belong  to  an 
idea  through  conformity  with  a  mere  purpose.  It  must  indi- 
cate the  nature  of  an  object.  However,  much  voluntary  selec 
tion  may  operate  in  the  constitution  and  arrangement  of  the 
contents  of  an  idea,  the  function  of  the  idea  is  to  express  the 
truth  and  to  conform  to  facts.  And  facts  are  stubborn  and,  at 
least  on  the  surface,  indifferent  to  the  purposes  and  intentions 
of  individuals.  Indeed,  the  value  of  an  idea  as  a  vehicle  of 
objective  truth  seems  to  be  destroyed  just  in  the  degree  to  whicli 
it  is  observed  to  be  subservient  to  an  individuars  will.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  purpose  with  which  we  form 
our  conceptions  of  objects  is  not  relevant  to  their  truth.  Our 
knowledge  must  confomi  to  facts,  not  the  facts  to  our  desires ; 
and  in  this  respect  there  is  the  strongest  contrast  between  the 
^intrinsic  meaning'  and  the  objective  reference  of  an  idea. 

This  is  the  "world-knot""''  and  is  a  contrast  which  Royc 
would  heighten.  But  he  would  reduce  it  by  reducing  the  e.\ 
ternal  meaning,  qua  external,  into  mere  appearance;  and  thei 
representing  it  as  an  aspect  of  the  internal  meaning.  The  e\ 
temal  meaning  is  simply  the  internal  meaning  imperfectly  un 
derstood.      "Our  final  result  will  simply  reabsorb  the  secondar 


nspect,  the  external  meaning,  into  the  completed  primary  as- 
)ect, — the  completely  embodied  internal  meaning  of  the  idea, 
"he  final  meaning  of  every  complete  idea,  when  fully  embodied, 

must  be  viewed  as  wholly  an  internal  meaning."^** 

.  Jf  to  the  ordinary  hunuin  consciousness  objects  appear  to 
}>e  independent  of  man's  purposes,  and  to  determine  his  ideas 
for  him,  that  arises  simply  from  his  imperfect  comprehension 

^of  what  both  his  will  and  objects  mean.     The  more  fully  he 
nterprets  them,  that  is  to  say,  the  more  intelligent  his  purpose 
►ecomes,  and  the  better  he  comprehends  objects,  the  more  the 
purpose  and  the  facts  will  be  found  to  approach  one  another. 
I  shall  not  only  imitate  my  object  as  another  and  correspond 
t  •  it  from  without.     I  shall  become  one  with  it,  and  so  inter- 
nally possess  it."     "The  real  world  is  just  our  whole  will  em- 
bodied."'"*^ 

I*ut  we  only  partially  know  our  own  will,  and,  in  conse- 
quence, we  find  it  obstructed  by  that  which  appears  to  be  en- 
^rely  foreign  and  other  to  us,  by  'brute  facts'.      But  the  process 
"  comprehending  facts  strips  them  of  their  otherness,  explains 
way  their  indifference,  and  foreignness,  brings  them  into  our 
kvn  intelligent  lives,  makes  them  part  of  our  living  experience, 
nd  constitutes  them  into  expressions  of  our  conscious  purpose, 
pd,  on  the  other  hand,  the  process  explaining  the  world  as 
ir  "embodied  purpose"  is  the  process  of  explicating  the  im- 
licit  significance  of  our  own  will,  till  at  last  we  find  it  is  co- 
itensive  with  real  being.      "Our  theory  will  identify  ignor- 
ice  of  reality  with  finite  vagueness  of  meaning,  will  assert 
lat  the  very  absolute,  in  its  fulness  of  life,  is  even  now  the 
^jcct  that  you  really  mean  by  your  fragmentary  passing  ideas, 
d  that  the  defect  of  your  present  human  form  of  consciousness* 
's  in  the  fact  that  you  just  now  do  not  know  precisely  what 


>\\  mean. 


M32 


28. 


'The  World  nnd  the  Individual.  T  .pp.   22.   23.      29.   Ibid.   T,   p.   35.      30.  Ibid 


Xow  this  absorption  of  the  external  meaning  of  ideas  in  the 
internal  meaning  is  to  do  away  wuth  the  distinction  between 
exiernal  objects  and  conscious  volitions,  and  to  represent  the 
world  of  reality  simply  as  the  expresion  of  an  intelligent  will, 
i^irther  to  represent  the  'real  world  as  just  our  w^hole  will 
^Tyibodied'  is  to  identify  man  with  the  Absolute,  and  to  make 
hi>  finitude  a  mere  appearance,  an  accident  due  to  his  ignor- 

T>.   3  4.      31.   Ibid.   I,    pp.   37.   38.      32.   n)kl.   T.   p.   39.      33.   Ibid.    I,   p.    38.    34. 


82 


Iloyce   and   J ndlriduallon 


Boyce  and  Individuation 


ance.     It  may  be  an  appearance  from  which  he  can  never  en 
tirely  free  himself,  for  he  may  be  endlessly  engaged  in  over- 
coming this  ignorance,  to  which  the  contrast  between  inner  an ! 
outer  is  due.     Yet  his  destiny,  were  it  fulfilled,  is  to  "faco 
Being",  to  "become  one  with  it,  and  so  internally  to  possess  it''' 
This  identification  of  the  world  with  man's  will  and  man's  wil 
with  the  Absolute  is  the  very  means  of  secnring  the  individual 
ity,  the  unique  personal  existence  of  both  man  and  God.     Go 
is  the  "Individual  of  Individuals.'"*     And  seeing  that  man  i 
will,  his  individual  rational  life,  in  the  process  of  comprehend 
ing  the  world  more  and  more  fully,  ever  deepens  within  itselt 
into  greater  inner  determinateness  and  unity  with  itself.     II 
becomes     free     of    the     whole     world,     for    the  whole  worl 
is  his  own,    and  the    enactment    of    his    personal    intelligeir 
will.     This  man's  action  is  "as  unique  as  is  the  whole  divii;* 
life,  as  free  as  is  the  whole  meaning  of  which  the  w^orld  is  a 
expression."     It  is  one  with  the  divine  life.     "When  I  thi 
consciously  and  uniquely  will,  it  is  I,  then,  who  just  here  ai 
God's  will."''^ 


Ibid.    I,  p.    40.      35.    Ibid.    T.   pp.   468,   409. 


CIIAPTKR    V. 

Critical. 

I. 

With  Will  as  the  principle  of  individuation  there  is  a  diffi- 
culty similar  to  that  where  thought  was  held  to  be  the  principle. 
"A  will,  or  a  purpose,  can  never  be  the  whole  of  the  world. 
A  purpose  always  means  that,  founding  yourself  on  matter 
accepted  as  a  basis,  you  recognize  a  certain  alteration  as  essen- 
tial, in  view  of  the  admitted  situation,  for  the  restoration  or 
partial  restoration  of  harmony.'"  Such  at  least  i:>/ 
finite  purjx>se.  It  is  "a  partial  phenomenon  within  a 
totality."  All  processes  of  will  imply  the  contrast  be- 
tween  existence  as  it  comes  to  us  in  the  here  and  now  of  actual 
feeling,  and  existence  as  it  should  be.  and  as  we  seek  to  make 
it,  for  the  satisfaction  of  our  various  impulses,  cravings  and 
desires.  In  an  experience  where  the  aspects  of  ideality  and  \ 
real  existence  are  once  for  all  finally  united,  thought  complet- 
ed, will  fulfilled  or  embodied,  we  arc  giving  to  Svill'  and 
'thought'  meanings  not  in  ordinary  usage.^  We  have  obscurity 
then  in  Will  as  the  princi])le  of  individuation.  The  logical 
demonstration  of  Will  as  completely  satisfied  and  fulfilled  is 
based  on  facts  of  finite  experience.  Yet  a  finished  world  is 
not  in  accord  with  the  nature  of  will"  a^  we  know  it. 

Will  in  the  finite  has  still  another  ])liase.  Xot  only  do  we 
regard  will  as  in  process  of  embodying  itself,  but  as  purpose, 
in  its  exact  definition,  we  think  of  will  as  growing  more  definite 

1.  Bosanquet   "The   Principle   of   Individuality  and   Value",    p.    ">91.      See  also   A.   E. 
Taylor,    "Elements  of   Metaphysics"  p.   410   f. 

2.  In  Spinoza's  Ethics  I,  17.  Sch.  we  read,  "If  intellect  and  volition  belong  to  the 
eternal  essence  of  God  each  of  these  attributes  must  differ  toto  caelo  from  our 
will  and  intellect,"  See  also  F.  H.  Bradley,  "Truth  and  Reality"  96  f.  "Will  must 

imply  something  in  the  self,  or  beyond  the  self,  which  is  other  than  will  and  apart 
from  this  'other'  I  cannot  find  any  sense  or  meaning  in  the  'will'  either  of  man 
or  God."  See  also  p.  350  note. 
3  Prof.  Howison  sees  danger  in  basing  will  in  any  sense  on  desire,  or  of  finding  its 
JCajUaJft-dfiait^^**®  '^^^  conception  of  God,  p.  187  f.  Royce's  dialectic  of  Will). 
Ho  thinks  such  a  relation  opens  the  door  to  possible  anarchy  (see  Report  of  the 
Philosophical  Association  for  1915,  in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology'  and 
Scientific  Method,  Feb.  17th,  1916,  p.  99).  He  would  find  the  basis  of  origina- 
tion in  man  in  "rational  self-activity."  (The  Conception  of  God,  p.  321.  Ed. 
note).  Will  is  not  indeterminate  in  any  direction.  Selective  attention  is  motivat- 
ed. Howison  believes  we  are  forced  back  in  search  of  cognitive  grounds  of 
choice.  RoycG  would  acknowledge  the  presence  of  other  influences  than  the  putely 
cocnitive.      T>psirf!   and    instinct    arc  present 


u 


Jioyrr    anr^    / ixlirifhtalion 


and  adequate.  The  'Arrest'  we  tind  in  will  is  not  so  nnioli 
that  which  absohitely  precludes  all  other  embodiment  but  thai 
arrest  which  perfect  definition  gives  to  the  purpose.  Mighi 
we  not  think  of  the  Absolute  as  a  fully  defined  Purpose,  exist 
ing  not  as  a  mere  ideal  but  as  being  embodied  is  an  infinitelv 
unfinished  world?*  Part  II.  will  deal  more  fully  with  thi> 
point. 

IT. 

As  noted  in  the  criticism  of  J\^riod  I,  a  -completed  exper- 
ience'' leaves  no  real  place  for  free  individuals.  While  Though 
individuated  the  world,  the  finite  was  still  capable  of  vali  1 
thinking.     As  reflection  it  was  'powerless'  and  indeed  soughi 
no  power. 

But  if  Will  individuates  the  world  and  embodies  itself  con. 
pletely,  there  is  no  room  for  real  will  in  the  finite.     ''Whoever 
is  possessed  of  any  meaning,  whoever  faces  truth,  whoever  rat 
ionally  knows,  has  before  his  consciousness  at  once,  that  which 
possesses  the  unity  of  a  knowing  process,  and  that  which  fulfil ~ 
a  purpose,  or  in  other  words,  that  which  constitutes  what  w 
have  from  the  outset  called  an  act  of  will  as  well  as  an  act  of 
knowledge.'- '^     Does  this  mean  more  than  getting  a  clearly  d( 
fined  thought,  ideal  or  purpose  be'ore  the  mind?     If  it  implir- 
an  active  effort  to  embody  the  will,  then  in  a  'closed  uniyers(3' 
such  effort**  is  unaccounted  for  and   its  results  are  negligible 
and  temporal  replica'^  of  the  eternal  realities. 


IloycG  and  hidlvlduatioi 


»>  \ 
'j.> 


the  closed  universe,  it  was  noted  that  the  finite  could  know  his 
relation  as  a  'part'  of  the  whole,  and  could  know  that  the  w^hole 
is  the  expression  of  a  Universal  Will.  As  a  'part'  of  this  Will, 
■  the  activity  in  time  open  to  the  part  was  to  return  to  the  wlioh^ 
from  which  it  had  been  individuated.  This  doctrine  of  duty 
seemed  a  doctrine  of  self-alienation. 

In  this  second  period  the  position  is  imchanged.'  "In  all 
this  my  own  struggle  wath  evil,  wherein  lies  my  comfort?  I 
answer,  my  true  comfort  can  never  lie  in  my  temporal  attain- 
ment of  my  goal.  For  it  is  my  first  business,  as  a  moral  agent, 
and  as  a  servant  of  God,  to  set  before  myself  a  goal  that,  in 

^  rime,  simply  cannot  be  attained Wlierein  can  comfort 

I  truly  be  found?     I  reply.     In  the  consciousness,  first,  that  the 
I  ideal  sorrows  of  our  finitude  are  identically  God's  own  sor- 
j  rows and  in  the  assurance,  secondly,  that  God's  ful- 
filment in  the  eternal  order  is  to  be  won  through  the  very 

I  bitterness  of  tribulation through  this,  my  tribulation.'"* 

^  In  this  my  attitude  there  is  resignation,  acceptance  rather  than 
I  any  active  cointrol.     I  am  loyal  to  the  Universal  Will  even  if 
T  do  not  comprehend  it.® 

,    7     Oa  this  point  see  W.  E.  Hocking,    "The   Meaning  of  God  in  Hainan  Experieace" 
'       p.   498   i.     "It  seems   to  me   that  Royce  has  brought  this   principle  of  altruism   to 
ita  philosophic  fulfilment." 

S     The  World  and  the  Individual,  pp.  407,  408. 

y     Th!«  point  is  dealt  with   fully  in  Part  II. 


Ill 


With  regard  to  the  finite  as  'part'  we  are  no  further  aheaJ 
than  in  the  earlier  period.     Xeglecting  there  the  doctrine  of 


5 
6 


Bosanquet  (Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value,  p.  113  f.)  takes  the  ground  that 
if  observation  and  experience  of  our  formed  individual  character  are  adequate  one 

can  predict  the  expression  of  will.  Koyt-o  would  say.  I  think,  that  if  one  hud  t'le 
complete  situation  one  might  predict.  There  seems  no  clear  cut  Ime  between 
•rational    self-activity*    and    less    rational    stages    in    mental    development.     Royce 

is  urging  for  the  expression  in  will  of  the  wh(»le  personality. 

Proi    James  in  his  Essay,  "The  Dilemma  of  Determinism"    (The  Will  to  Believe, 
p    181)   has  comp.'ired  our  relation  to  the  universe  to  that  of  the  unskilled  player 
and  the   skilled  one.      The  Intter  knows  not  ahead  the  moves  of  the  opponent,   but 
ho   knows   ho   himself   will   win. 
The  World  and  the   Individual  I,  433  f. 
James  Scth  in  a  review  of  "The  Conception  of  God"  in  the  Philosophical  Review* 

(1898)   p.  312,   says  "Will  is  after  all  only  'appearance'  in  man,   its  reality  is  the| 
Will    of   Cod." 


?i'W>«ll 


■..■fltaj»vi">t,-..  ^■ 


.»*• 


36 


Itoycc   and   liuluUluallon 


lioijcc   and    Indiridiiallon 


Period  III. 


ciiAi'TEU  vr. 


Er  position. 


In  ^The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty'  (1907)  we  have  Royee's 
first  attempt  to  deal  directly  with  the  question  of  ethics  since' 
his  first  book.  The  latter  dealt  with  the  subject  only  in  outhne 
with  the  ulterior  aim  of  showing  the  implication,  in  the  ^moral 
demand',  of  a  Universal  Will.  This  later  book  is  a  more 
complete  dealing  with  the  ethical  ideal.  The  earlier  work 
carried  the  implication  that  the  social  was  a  somewhat  tempor- 
ary' means  of  awakening  in  a  man  the  recognition  of  his  irue 
relation  to  the  Absolute.  This  later  bo^>k  develops  the  question 
of  man's  relations  to  man.  It  proves  to  be  more  than  a  tem- 
porary or  temporal  phase..  The  social  is  the  real.  It;  is  a 
matter  of  indifference  whether  we  view  Reality  as  the  Absolute 
or  as  the  Community.'  In  the  earlier  work,  ^'independence  is 
a  temporary  means,'who?e  ultimate  aim  is  harmony  and  unity 
of  all  men  on  a  higher  plane."*  In  the  third  period  the  social 
is  eternal  and  hence  distinctiveness  is  not  merely  temporal.  In 
the  earlier  work  the  finite  individual  is  temporal  aiid  derived. 
In  the  last  work  the  individual  is  eternal  and  underived.'' 

In  the  secHuul  period  the  individual  is  eternal  and  derived. 
Immortality  is  ascribed  lo  the  individual.  But  its  statement 
is  not  unambiguous.  While  the  "moral  ego  really  is  unful- 
filled"^ individuality  persists  as  a  "finite  life"  in  time.  Attain- 
ing the  goal  in  time  means  the  end.  So  immortality  means  a 
goal  ever  unattained.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  aim  is  eter- 
iially  attained.  Immortality  as  a  doctrine  presents  these  two 
aspects.     "Temporal  categories  are  wholly  inadequate  to  ex- 


1  Seo   thfl   Philosophy   of   Loyr.lty,   p.    ix. 

2  See  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Pihlosopohy,  p.  478. 
sonal  immorality."      See  also  440. 

3  See  the  Problem  of  Christianity,    I,   pp.   xxxvi,   409,   II,    11. 

4  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  21G. 

.5      If  we  choose  as  alternative  "the  Divine  Community". 


We  know  nothing  about  per- 


^  press  the  ultimate  facts  of  life.""     We  have  here  an  unmediat- 
•  ed  contrast  between  time  and  eternitv. 

This  position  is  restated  in  The  World  and  the  Individual/ 
''In  Eternity  all  is  done,  and  we  too  rest  from  our  labors.  In 
Time  there  is  no  end  to  the  individual  ethical  task."  We  are 
assured  that  "Philosophy  here  supports  tradition.  This  is  a 
moral  world.  All  moral  battles  get  fought  out.  All  quests 
are  fulfilled.  The  goal — yes,  your  individual  goal — is  by  you 
yourself  attained  in  the  eternal  life.  You,  yourself,  and  not 
merely  another,  consciously  know  in  the  eternal  world  the  at- 
tainment of  that  goal."®  This  oscillation  between  ^eternaF  and 
'temporar  leaves  the  matter  ambiguous.  I  find  it  impossible 
to  make  Royce's  meaning  clear  to  myself.  I  can  but  accept  his 
word  that  "this  Eternal  Xow  is  simply  not  the  temporal  pre' 
^^ent."^*' 

Ir  appears  it  is  necessary  to  see  that  **tlie  true  distinction 
and  the  true  connection,  between  the  temporal  and  the  eternal 
aspects  of  Being,  furnish,  in  truth,  the  basis  for  a  solution  of 
this  whole  problem."^^  Yet  the  distinction  and  connection  are 
not  made  clear.  One  welcomes  then  the  chance  of  escape  from 
these  dark  sayings  as  offered  in  the  position  of  the  third  period. 
Here  we  may  regard  the  ultimate  as  ^the  Divine  Community'^" 
and  hence  the  need  is  gone  of  seeking  to  hold  together  two  such 
incommensurables  as  'temporal'  and  'eternal'. 

In  the  earlier  work  we  read  ''the  moral  insight,  insisting 
upon  the  need  of  the  harmony  of  all  human  wills,  shows  us 
that,  whatever  the  highest  human  good  may  be,  we  can  only 

attain  it  together,  for  it  involves  harmony Either  the 

liighest  goo<l  is  for  man  unattainable,  or  the  humanity  of  the 
iiiture  must  get  it  in  common.  Therefore  the  sense  of  com- 
munity, the  power  to  work  together,  with  clear  insight  into  our 

reasons  for  so  working,  is  the  first  need  of  humanity 

Extend  the  moral  insight  among  men."^^  "This  extension  of 
the  moral  insight  is  best  furthered  by  devotion  to  our  individual 
vocations,  coupled  with  strict  loyalty  to  the  relations  upon 
which   society   is   founded."^*     This   sense   of  community,   as 

^!     Tho   Conception  of  God,   p.   323   f.      Ibid.   p.    326. 

^     The  World  and  the  Individual,   II,   p.   444  f. 

9     The  Conception  of  God,  p.  326.      10.  Ibid,  p,   348. 

11  Tho    World    and    the    Individual,    II.    347. 

12  See  the  Problem  of  Christianity,   I,  pp.  x.xxvi,  409;   II,   p.   11. 
1^  Tho  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.   275.     14,   Ibid.  p.  473.    See  also  p.    V. 


lioyte    iuni    J iiiiit  iduaUon 


Royce    arj]    Indlciduatloti 


conscious,  wliile  coining  later  than  a  conscious  sense  of  separate 
ness,  is  more  fundamental.     In  this  earlier  period  the  relation  r| 
of  separateness  and  community  is  temporal  only  and  the  former 
is  produced  only  to  be  resigned  for  the  latter.     In  the  latest 
period  distinctiveness  and  connnunity  are  co-eternal. 

In  the  first  period  the  Absolute  is  One  Will  appearing  in 
the  temporal  order  as  many  wills.     In  the  second  the  many 
persist  in  some  sense  as  immortal.     In  the  oscillation  between 
the  temporal  and  the  eternal,  it  is  not  clear  v.hcther  the  individ- 
ual has  some  form  of  temporal  existence  after  the  death  or  th(^ 
bodv.     If  it  has  reached  the  end  and  yet,  while  no  longer  tem- 
poral, has  an  eternal  form  of  persistence,  then  the  fact  can  b- 
stated  only.     What  that  ^eternar  is  you  cannot  know  "in  so 
far  as  vou  remain  on  this  shoal  of  timc."'^     Are  we  not  given 
a  contrast  here  instead  of  logic?     In  the  third  period  alon^; 
with  the  older  Absolutism  we  have  an  alternative  position  oi- 
fered  us.     The  unity  and  plurality  are  co-eternal.     Just  how 
the   unity   remains   as    uniquely   individual   as   in   the  earlier 
periods  is  not  made  clear.^"    Unity  and  plurality  are,  at  any 
rate,  two  aspects  of  the  same  reality.     Here  we  seem  to  escapiN 
through   the  alternative,   from   the  obscurities   of  the  eternul 
derivation   of  the   individual.     If  plurality   is   ultimate  then 
individuals  are  ultimate  and  hence  underived.      "A  community 
immediately  presents  itself  to  our  minds,  both  as  one  and  as 
many  and  unless  it  is  both  one  and  many  it  is  no  communitv 
at  ail.'"'     We  have  then  In  this  alternative  position  only  that 
individuation  which  consists  in  the  development  of  the  individ- 
ual as  ultimate.     And  individuation  in  time  is  still  mediated 
through  the  individual  consciousness.^® 

IT. 

lu  this  later  perii.d  we  have  monism  and  pluralism  rather 
externally  joined  together.  A  general  impression  is  that  Royce 
has  retreated  from  his  extreme  Absolutism.  But  we  have  a 
clear  attempt  to  unite  that  extreme  position  to  his  later  empha- 


Also  The  Conception  of  God,   pp  278  f.,   320   f. 

15  The    Conception   of    God,    p.    326. 

16  Tho  attempt  is  made  by  the  ascription  to  family,  social  or  other  higher  unities 
of  an  individuality  more  concrete  than  is  that  of  the  indiridual  "[^an  Even  » 
crowd  has  a  'mind.'  It  is  impossible  to  locate  this  mind  except  in  the  mdividuais. 
'Public   spirit'   is   a  figurative  expx-ession.      Only  citizens  as   individuals   possess   it. 

17  Tho  Problem  of  Christianity.   TT,    p   17. 


sis  on  the  individual  as  social.      And  the  attempt  results  in  his 
usual  oscillation. 

The  individual,  as  we  have  just  noticed,  exercises  his  own 
initiative  in  choice.     Yet  he  is  social.     Xow  we  have  at  time.^ 
these  social  unities,  in  which  man  is  found,  regarded  as  ideal ^" 
This  still  leaves  the  individual  as  the  maker  of  his  own  destiny. 
Then  we  have  them  drawn  out  before  us  as  over-individuals, 
with  minds,  etc.     Just  how  the  freedom  of  the  individual  is 
preserved  here^°  is  obscure.     We  are  told  that  "we  all  of  us 
believe  that  thei^e  is  any  real  world  simply  because  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  situation  in  which,  because  of  the  frajnnentarv 
and   dissatisfying  conflicts,    antitheses,   and   problems   of  our 
present  ideas,   an   interpretation  of  this   situation  is  needed, 
hut  is  not  now  known  to  us.     By  the  ^real  world'  we  mean 
Isimply  tlie  'true  interpretation  of  this  our  problematic  situation. 
Xo  other  reason  can  be  given  than  this  for  believing  that  there 
is  any  real  world  at  all.""     Yet  we  read  ''a  community,  when 
unified  by  an  active  indwelling  purpoe,  is  an  entity  more  con- 
crete, and,  in  fact  less  mysterious  than  is  any  individual  man 
and  that  such  a  community  can  love  and  be  loved  as  a  husband 
and  wife  love;  or  as  father  or  mother  love."^^     A  "corporate 
Jentity  is  something  more  concrete  than  is  the  individual  fel- 
llow  man.''"  Or  "if,  by  person,  you  mean  a  live  unity  of  know- 
ledge and  of  will,  of  love  and  of  deed, — then  the  community 
of  tlie  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  a  person  on  a  higher  level  than 
is  the  level  of  any  human  individual."^*     Just  how  such  en- 
jtities  are  more  concrete  than  the  individuals  in  whose  conscious- 
Incss  they  appear  as  ideals  seems  obscure.     If  the  community 
nas  such  concrete  existence  and  is  endowed  with  mind  and  will, 
then  supreme  power  over  its  members  is  the  logical  conclusion. 

18  See   The   Religious   Aspect   of   Philosophy,    p.    470.. 
Also   Tho  Problem   of  Christianity,    Jl     p.    60. 

10  See  Ibid.  II,  p.  79,  it  is  a  "consoioasi.fss  of  Unity"  and  "a  commo.i  life  in  time." 
Sea  also  II,   p.   88,   II,  264. 

■  Prof.  Dewey  in  his  book  on  "German  Philosophy  and  Politics"  shows  that  Prus- 
sia has  taken  literally  this  over-individuality  and  hence  ascribes  to  the  State 
supreme  power  over  the  citizen.  When  Royce  is  emphusi/.ing  the  more  monistic 
side  of  hi.s  position   he   seems  open  to   Dewey's  criticisms. 

-1    The   Problem   of   Christianity,    II,    p.    264    f.      22.   Ibid.    I,    p.    95.      23.   Ibid.    I,    p. 
94.   See   I,    64,    where   he   cites   Wundt   approvingly   as   saying   that  organized   com- 
munities  are   psychical   entities.      Or   I,    62,    "a   community    is   a   sort  of  live  unit, 

that  has  organs,  as  the  body  of  an  individual  has  organs it  has  a  mind  of 

its  own." 
The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  313.  The  Absolute  is  viewed  as  "one  unity  of 
con.sciousness,  wherein  countless  unities  are  synthesized."  o.c.  p.  310  "Our  Social 
organization  as  personal  unities  ol  con.sciousness."  o.c.  p.  311.  From  this  point 
of  view  we  are,  and  we  have  our  worth,  by  virtue  of  our  relation  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  a  type  superior  to  the  human  type."  See  also  The  Sources  of  Religious 
Insight,  p.  201. 

■^  Tho  Problem  of  Christianity.   I.   S.Vi. 


liili^HiMji^wif^iiifttyii^riHigiatttaMj! 


gg^waui^itti 


40 


Jlojjce    and   lit'jindualtun 


1 

i 


iluijce   and   Indlviduaiion 


41 


This  unmediated  relation  betAvcen  coniiimnity  and  units 
holds  throughout  and  as  the  unity  intended  has  been  found  un- 
satisfactory in  the  discussion  of  the  earlier  periods,  one  can 
exercise  the  privilege  of  choice  and  select  that  viev> 
which  is  more  just  to  the  individual  since  such  is  our  startmir 
point.  If  man  is  social  in  his  essential  nature  both  temporallv 
and  eternally,  there  need  be  no  such  concrete  and  unitary  per- 
sonal mind  inclusive  of  his. 

We  shall  count  these  conununities  as  spiritual,  and  more 
idecd  yet  than  actual,  and  based  in  the  essentially  social  nature 
of  men.  In  the  first  period  all  are  to  use  personal  choice  lu 
deciding  to  '^nct  as  one  being.''"  Here  we  surely  have  an  ideal 
or  a  formal  principle.  This  choice  is  exercised  only  in  th(i 
temporal  since  immortality  is  not  known..  In  the  last  period 
the  choice  of  ideals  is  a  permanent  feature  of  individual  life. 
The  individuality  of  the  ^part'  persists,  since  community  as 
such  i:^  ultimate  and  eternal. 

111. 

Choosing    this    alternative    po.-^iiion,    imlividuation    is    \h- 
problem  of  ""developing  tlie  potential.     It  is  a  social  potential. 
We  realize  it  in  the  service  of  'cau.ses'.     The  'highest'  ideal  of 
life  is  to  be  '4oyal  not  for  the  sake  of  the  good  that  we  private- 
ly get  out  of  loyalty,  but  tor  the  sake  of  the  good  of  the  cause,-- 
this  higlier  unity "^of  experience,— gets  out  of  this  loyalty."'' 
This  conceiving  of  a  gulf  between  any  true  self-satisfactio^n  and 
a  disinterested  service  of  a  cause  is  an  abstraction  and  is  evi 
deuce  of  that  one-sidedness  in  ethical  theory  which  I  have  called 
self-alienation.        It  does  not  seem  to  be  a  necessary  feature 
of  the  life  of  the  individual  in  the  community..     This  seem5 
to  me  to  emphaize  the  persistent  variety  of  interests  and  aini'^ 
rather  than  the  monotony  of  an  ultimate  unit  of  aim  and  pur- 
pose.    This  self-alienatimi  as  discussed  in  connection  with  the 
first  period,  seems  to  me  m  view  foisted  on  the  individual  by  the 
necessities  of  an  Absolutism  not  really  found  in  finite  experi- 
ence.    Here  also  in  the  third  period  in  spite  of  the  alteniative 
offered  k^ween  Monism  and  Pluralism,  the  monistic  ethical 
ideal  is  present. 

This  is  the  highest  ideal  since,  '^I,  myself  am  a  fragmentary 
conscious  life  that  is  included  within  the  conscious  conspectus 

25  The   Religious  Aspect   of   Philosophy,    p.    193. 

26  Tlie  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.   312. 


I 


of  the  world's  ex})erience,  and  that  is  in  one  self-consciou  i 
unity  with  that  world-consciousness.""^  I  am  to  find  my  high 
est  life  in  ^^a  practical  service  of  superhuman  objects."^^  Thi 
service  is  ever  one  which  I  personally  am  to  choose.  Hence 
^^the  unity  of  the  world  is  not  an  ocean  in  which  we  are  lost 
but  a  life  which  is  and  which  needs  all  our  lives  in  one."^'' 
Here  we  have  a  juxta-position  of  the  concrete  and  the  ideal. 
The  'life  is*  and  yet  needs  our  efforts. 

Our  task  as  free  individuals  in  this  higher  unity  is  to  be- 
come indi\dduals.  The  meaning  of  life  comes  in  some  degree 
at  first,  "through  some  authority  external  to  our  wills"^^  and 
ever  "in  so  far  as  our  moral  training  is  incomplete,  the  moral 
law  may  at  any  mo^ment  have  to  assume  afresh  this  air  of  exter- 
nal authority  merely  in  order  to  win  our  due  attention. "^^  The 
truly  right  or  wrong  act,  however,  calls  for  the  activity  of 
conscience  in  the  individual  himself.  ''My  duty  is  simply  m.y 
own  will  brou£>ht  t(^  mv  clear  self-<*onsciousness."^" 

Xow  "by  nature,  apart  from  any  specific  training,  I  have 
no  personal  will  of  my  own.""''  "Plans  of  life  come  to  us  in 
connection  with  our  endless  imitative  activities"^*  which  are 
however  never  merely  imitative  for  "conformity  attracts  but 
also  wearies  us."^'  But  "social  conformity  gives  us  social 
power."^'*  Thus,  in  interaction,  one  comes  to  consciousness  of 
who  and  what  he  is.  One  is  actuallv  individuated  in  the 
growth  in  the  individual  of  the  sense  of  individuality  and  its 
power  of  service. 

This  individuation,  marking  man';5  social  dependence  or 
interdependence,  is  indicative  of  the  direction  of  his  true  life. 
I  do  not  give  up  my  will  but  my  highest  achievement  is  to 
choose  freely  and  with  personal  satisfaction  the  will  of  the 
higher  unity.  The  patriot  is  one  who  "has  no  will  but  that  of 
the  country."^^  This  personal  choice  of  impersonal  ends  or 
loyalty  "reverberating  all  through  you,  stirring  you  to  your 

27  Tho  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  306  f.  28.  Ibid.  p.   374.  See  also  "The  Sources  of 
Religious    Insight"   p.    200. 

29  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  394.      Italics  are  mine.      30.  Ibid  p.  24. 

31  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  25.  32.  Ibid.  p.  25.  33.  Ibid.  p.  31.  34. 
Ibid.  p.  32.  35.  Ibid.  p.  34.  36.  Ibid.  p.  35.  37.  Ibid.  p.  41.  See  also 
Sources  of   Religious   Insisglit,    p_    201. 

One  may  note  here  the  change  in  phraseolop^y  (if  not  iu  meaning)  from  the 
earliest  book.  In  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy  (pp.  210-212)  much  is 
made  of  'impersonal'  aims  and  ideals.  Here  the  choice  of  one's  service  is  ever  a 
•personal'  one.      (See  the  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,   pp.   18  f.,   20,   52,   79,  384)   p. 

20    'The    cause is    never    something    wholly    impersonal.     It    concerns    other 

men."     The  difference  seems  verbal.     The  'personal'  choice  to  be  impersonal  seems 
to  me   to  be  a   seli-contradiction. 


4:i 


Uoijcc    and    liiJiridualiun 


Jiui/cc    Ur.d    IitJicidaatiuH 


A.) 


depths,  first  unifies  your  plan  of  life,  and  thereby  gives  you 
what  nothing  else  can  give,-yourself  as  lived  in  accordance 
with  a  plan,  your  consciousness  as  your  plan  interpreted  tor 
you  through  your  ideal,  your  cause  expressed  as  your  personal 
purpose  in  living.'"'  This  loyalty  which  individi.ates  us  as 
selves  is  "the  will  to  manifest  the  eternal  in  and  through  the 
deeds  of  individual  selves.""  In  loyalty  to  a  cause  is  found 
that  which  not  onlv  individuates  the  life  of  any  person  in  ur- 
nishing  him  with  a  task,  but  which  brings  him  to  full  moral 
self-consciousness.  My  onsciousness  is  my  ideal  and  vice 
versa. 

Vow  the  causes  of  men  will  vary.  Our  tasks  may  oven 
seem  to  clash.  I  must  be  loyal  not  so  much  to  the  cause  of 
another  which  clashes  with  my  own  but  to  my  fellow  s  spirit 
of  lovalty.  Thus  the  principle  that  individuates  men  may  be 
stated  in  its  most  general  form  as  "loyalty  to  loyalty  .  Under 
the  leading  of  this  spirit,  we  will  be  guided  towards  harmony 
and  iwace  and  a  true  communal  life. 

Thus  Kovce  has  sought  to  place,  metaphysically,  the  moral 
life  of  man.'  Individuals  temporally  construct  social  organiza- 
tions and  institutions,  because  eternally  they  are  social.  1  ho 
'city  of  God'  is  teing  let  down  out  of  Heaven."  The  sense  ot 
individual  separateness  is  the  negative  side  of  a  positive  com- 
munity of  nature.  An  isolated  individual  is  nan-existent.  1  lie 
gap  which  thought  makes  at  times  between  individua  s,  if 
seen  as  onlv  real  for  thought.  Our  consciousness  is  social  and 
it  is  in  soc'ial  communion  that  the  uniqueness  of  self-ident.ty 
is  attained.  In  defining  his  own  plan  and  purpose  within  the 
unity  of  the  communal  mind,  a  man  attains  what  degree  of  dis- 
tincfiveness  is  his.  The  basic  purpose  of  us  all  is  thus,  making 
our  purposes  definite,  to  cooperate  with  our  fellows  m  the 
pursuit  of  common  aims. 

IV. 

h,  the  I'hilusophv  of  Loyalty,  the  principle  for  guidance 
in  moral  conduct,  is  "the  principle  of  "loyalty  to  loyalty  .  It 
the  individual  feels  that  the  direction  'to  be  loyal  to  a  cause 

38.   The  Philosophy  of    Loyally   PP.   384.  39.   Ibid,   p.   377.     See  also    Source,  o. 

Religious   Insight,   p.   206. 
40.    See   Rpvelation    21    2. 


I 


gives  little  more  counsel  than  a  rule  to  be  conscientious,  tlie 
interpretation  given  'loyalty  to  a  cause^  in  the  concluding  chap- 
ters of  the  book  and  in  ^'The  Problem  of  Christianity'^  seems 
much  more  adequate.  The  ethical  rule  is  made  definitely  meta- 
physical. Loyalty  does  not  work  in  a  vacuum,  but  in  the  con- 
crete world.  Here  causes  aiv  found.  A  cause  is  the  appear- 
ance in  the  time-process  of  a  unity  of  life,  wider  or  larger  than 
the  individual  person..  .  These  causes,  if  not  fully  actual  in 
the  time-process,  are  being  realized  there.  So  then  "by  Loyalty 
is  meant  the  thorough-going  aud  loving  devotion  of  an  individ- 
ual to  a  community''*^  and  such  a  view  presents  logically  the 
problem  "whether  the  whole  universe  is  or  is  not,  in  some  ser<se, 
both  a  community  and  a  divine  beinu;.''*^ 

The  idea  of  the  communiry,  suggested  by  the  problems  of 
human  social  life,  is  an  illustration  of  the  possible  solution  of 
the  problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many  and  hence  of  the  quarrels 
of  Monism  and  Pluralism.'^  To  Iloyce,  in  this  latest  period, 
it  seems  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  one  calls  final  reality, 
the  Absolute  or  the  Divine  Community.**  'Ovlan  the  commun- 
ity  without  ceasing  to  be  genuinely  human,  may  also  provo  to 
be  divine Man  the  community  may  prove  to  be  God."*^ 

These  communities  are  true  individuals.     "A  crowd 

has  a  mind,  but  no  institutions,  no  organization,  no  coherent 
unity,  no  history,  no  traditions."*^  Add  these  latter  features 
and  3'ou  have  a  community,  for  "a  true  community  is  essentially 
a  product  of  a  time-process."*"  This  is  illustrated  by  the 
'familiar  analogy'  from  individual  life.  "The  self  comes  dovvn 
to  us  from  its  own  past.  It  needs  and  is  a  history."*^  *^My 
idea  of  myself  is  an  interpretation  of  my  past,  linked  with  an 
interpretation  of  my  hopes  and  intentions  as  to  my  future.'**^ 
If  I  extend  my  past,  my  life  tends  to  merge  with  the  lives  of 
iny  kindred^^  and  with  my  race.  If  I  extend  my  hopes  into  the 
future,  I  find  a  corresponding  Community  of  Hope.  The  ulii- 
mate  unity  of  all  would  be  the  Absolutc.^^ 

The  analogy  of  the  finite,  with  his  power  of  extending  "his 
life  in  ideal  fashion,  so  as  to  regard  it  as  including  past  mw] 
future  events  which  lie  far  awav  in  time,  and  which  he  does 
now  personally  remember,"*"  is  used  to  illustrate  the  meaning 

41.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  vol.  I,  p.  XXXVII.  42.  Ibid,  vol  I,  p.  XXXVI. 
43.  Ibid.  vol.  II,  p.  17.44.  Ibid.  II.  p.  11,  17,  220,  296.  45.  Ibid.  I,  408  f. 
46.  Ibid.  II.  36  f.  47.  Ibid.  II,  37.  48.  Ibid.  II.  40.  49.  Tbrd:"TTr"J27 
50.  Ibid  II,  64.  51.  Ibid  II,  46  f.  The  Absolute  is  implied  in  the  unity  of 
the  two  men  in  the  c«iioe.     52.  Ibid,    vol,  II.  p.  60  f. 


44 


liOj/cr    a  ((I    IiidirahndwH 


liUijcc   and    Iiid'iclduation 


A:^ 


of  the  'Coniiimniry\      It  is  a  genuine  unity  of  many,  a  social 
unity  with  a  history  and  with  ideals  for  the  future.. 

"Motives  which  are  as  familiar  as  they  are  hard  to  analyse 
have  convinced  us  all,  before  we  begin  to  philosophise,  thai  our 
human  world  contains  a  variety  of  individually  distinct  niind» 
or  selves,  and  that  some,  for  us  decisively  authoritative,  prin- 
ciple of  individuation  keeps  these  selves  apart."""  Here  is 
^stubborn  pluralism'.  It  points  to  the  "diversity  and  the  csp- 
arateness  of  our  streams  of  immediate  feeling"'*  or  notes  "that 
our  trains  of  conscious  thought  and  purpose  are  mutually  in- 
accessible through  any  mode  of  direct  intuition"  or  refers  to 
"our  deeds".  Are  we  not  ultimately  separate?  Yet  "primi- 
tive man  is  not  an  individualist"^'  even  though  he  gains  dis- 
tinctiveness as  he  emerges  from  the  primitive. 

^ilonism  would  indicate  a  more  fundamental  unity  in  that 
"social  cooperation  unquestionably  brings  into  existence  lan- 
guages, customs,  religions.""  The  facts  of  social  and  state  life 
indicate  that  "large  and  small  bodies  of  men  can  come  to  act 
as  if  one  conmion  intelligence  and  one  common  will  wore 
using  the  individuals  as  its  almost  helpless  instruments."''  In 
actual  social  life  "the  close  shut-in  streams  of  consciousness  ap- 
pear as  if  they  had  lost  their  banks  altogether."'^'  The  ^Com- 
munity', as  not  only  the  larger  inclusive  present,  but  as  also 
the  great  past  and  the  future,  holds  v/ithin  itself  the  individuals 
in  spite  of  or  through  their  separatenesss.  So  the  Divine  Com- 
munity is  that  invisible  world  which  holds  us  all. 

The  problem  of  individuation  is  not  then  to  note  the  points 
of  separation  as  if  the  dndividual  could  be  defined  nega- 
tively by  what  he  excluded  or  was  not.  "My  life  means  noth- 
ing, either  theoretically  or  practically,  unless  I  am  a  member 
of  a  community.  I  win  no  success  worth  having  unless  it  is 
also  the  success  of  the  community  to  which  I  essentially  and  by 
virtue  of  my  real  relations  to  the  whole  universe  belong.  My 
deeds  are  not  done  at  all,  unless  they  are  indeed  done  for  all  time 
and  are  irrevocable.""^  The  community  gives  this  historical 
fixity  and  continuity.  The  lesser  unites  or  communities  are  all 
fixed  in  the  supreme  unity  or  conmumity.  Here  the  'credit 
values'  of  postulates  and  hypotheses  have  their  'redeemers'  "laid 


53.    Ibid,  vol  II,   p.   18.      54.  Ibid.   vol.    II,  20  i. 
56.    Ibid.  vol.   II.  25.      57.     Ibid.   vol.   II.  P.    26. 

59.  Ibid.   vol.  II.  28. 

60.  Tho   Problem   of   rhriRtisnity.    IT.    313. 


55.    Ibid,  vol.   II,  23  f. 
58.   Ibid,  vol.  II,  p.    27  f, 


11})  in  a  realm  where  our  experiences  past,  present,  future,  are 
the  objects  of  a  conspectus  that  is  not  merely  temporal  an.] 
transient"^^  for  ''the  temporal  world  in  its  wholeness,  constitutes 
in  itself  an  infinitely  complex  Sign.  This  sign  is,  as  a  whole, 
interpreted  to  an  experience  which  itself  includes  a  synoptic 
survey  of  the  whole  of  time.'""- 

If  now  I  am,  more  or  loss  potentially,  a  member  of  a  com- 
inunity  how  am  I  individuated  as  such  a  member?     I  am  a 
self  in  being"  "a  life  whor^o    unity  and  connectedness  deperds 
upon  some  sort  of  interpretations  of  plans,  of  memories,  of 
hoj)es  and  of  deeds."^^  "The  word  'interpretation'  is  a  conven- 
ient name  for  a  process  which  at  least  aims  to  be  cognitive."^* 
"There  is  no  direct  intuition  or  perception  of  the  self"^^  but 
"one  discovers  one's  own  mind  through  a  process  of  inferonce 
analogous  to  the  very  modes  of  inference  which  guide  us  in  a 
ocial  effort  to  interpret  our  neighbour's  minds."^®     Even  in  my 
noments  of  reflection  I  am  social  for  "reflection  involves  an 
nterior  conversation."*^^  "Tlirough  the  present  self,  the  past  is 
0  interpreted  that  its  couiLsel  is  conveyed  to  the  future  self.''^'^ 
Thus  in  my  very  cognition  I  show  my  social  nature.       I  am  a 
ommunity,  an  image  of  the  whole.     This  constitutes  my  in- 
dividuation.     In  loyalty  I  serve  the  ultimate  cause  and  become 
n  myself  an  interpreter.     Just  as  in  the  earliest  periods  l)ring 
iig  the  Absolute  to  the  facts,  each  finite  self  turns  out  to  be, 
-vlien  fully  viewed,  the  Absolute.       So  here  the  Community 
(though  viewed  also  as  less  definitely  a  unit)  is  brought  to  the 
tacts  and  each  individual,  as  seen  fully,  is  a  community.^® 

"Loyalty  to  a  community  of  interpretation  enters  into  all 
he  other  forms  of  true  loyalty.  Xo  one  who  loves  mankind 
an  find  a  worthier  and  more  significant  way  to  express  his  love 
han  by  increasing  and  expressing  among  men  the  Will  to  In- 
erpret.""** 

The  loyalty  to  a  cause  which  is  thiLs  posited  as  the  principle 
'f  individuation,  if  deepened  from  an  ethical  to  a  metaphysical 
reference,  means  a  Loyalty  to  the  Beloved  Community.     Each 

<'!.  The    Philosophy   of    Loyalty,    p.    3.^7. 
^'2.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,    II.   286 

53.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,   II,   p.   111.      64.   Ibid.  II,   129.      65.    Ibid.  II,   138. 
66.  Ibid.   II,    138  f.      67.   Ibid.  II,   138.      68.   Ibid.   II,    144. 

59.  To  view  one's  cognition   as  triiidic  and   thus  social  and  hence  to  ground  the  notion 
of  man's  social  nature  in   this  is  to  me  an  analogy  but  no  more. 

fO.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,   11.218.     71.   Ibid,   II,   p.   215.      See  also  the  Philo- 
sophy of  Loyalty,   p.    172. 


46 


Royce   and   Indnnduation 


one  is  then  *4cleally  aiming  at  an  ideal  event —the  spiritual 
unity  of  our  community" ^^  and  in  so  doing  becomes  a  significant 
individual. 

The  loyal  individual  in  possessing  the  ^Will  to  Interpret' 
is  an  interpreter.       That  which  viewed  practically  is  loyalty 
viewed  cognitively  is  interpretation. 


Royce    and    Jndiridaalion 


47 


CIIArTER  vir. 


Critical. 


1. 


In  thib  period,  the  principle  of  individuation,  whether  'luy- 
ilty  to  a  cause',  ^loyalty  to  loyalty'  or  'the  will  to  interpret', 
is  after  all  a  merely  formal  conception.  We  are  left  with  no 
canon  of  preference  which  will  enable  us  to  choose  between 
competing  causes  each  of  which  might  by  itself  be  regarded  as 
good.  Indeed  we  do  not  seem  to  be  in  the  sphere  of  concrete 
situations  Avhere  causes  ^re  real.  'Loyalty  to  loyalty'  is  "a 
noble  virtue  but  unless  we  read  into  it  all  our  virtues  and  our 
lentire  traditional  morality,  it  remains  too  general  and  empty  to 
jbe  of  any  great  theoretical  and  practical  value."^ 

To  such  a  possible  objection  Koyce  has  mnde  the  following 
lanswer.     If  our  uncertainty  is  the  choosing  between  causes  to 
both  of  which  one  should  be  loyal,  then  the  deepened  conception 
|of  loyalty  is  to  guide  us.     This  is  ^'loyalty  to  loyalty".     We 
ire  to  be  loyal  to  loyalty  in  order  to  do  what  we  can  to  produce 
la  maximum  of  devoted  service  of  causes,  a  maxinmm  of  fidelity, 
and  of  selves  that  choose  and  serve  fitting  objects  of  loyalty, 
put  if  I  use  the  word  ^fitting'  I  assume  the  distinction  between 
j^:ood  and  bad  causes.     This  is  what  a  fundamental  principle 
|of  morality  should  give.      And  so  we  are  left  still  without  any 
calculus  of  loyalties  and  apart  from  such  calculus  the  distinc- 
tion between  good  and  evil  is  assumed  simply  from  the  views 
)f  common  sense  and  that  without  any  acknov/ledgment.  Grant- 
ed we  are  to  be  loyal  and  to  promote  loyalty.     It  is  not  loyalty 
that  makes  a  cause  good  or  bad.     I  want  guidance  in  objective 
[situations,  not  a  mere  maxim  to  be  conscientious.. 

Without  a  doubt  this  ^'fixed  principle  of  duty"  is  necessary 
in  all  morality.     But  the  morality  which  is  constituted  by  ]nire 

p.  Thilly.  Review  of  "The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty"  in  The  Philosophical  Review 
for  1908,  p.  541  f.  He  holds  that  Royce  deduces  from  the  concept  of  loyalty 
exactly  what  he  hag  put  in  and  so  has  not  got  to  the  roots  of  human  conduct. 
Loyalty  is  a  general  labfl  for  pH  the  virtues  and  is  not  shown  to  be  a  prinf^-ipl** 
(*cc   Tho    Philosophy   of    Loyalty,    pp.    12«)    f..    1H9). 


48 


Iloyce    and   LtdiridaaiioH 


Roijcc    vnd   Indicidualion 


49 


Loyalty  is  a  morality  that   is  yet   in  tlio  stage  of  intent ior,  i.v 
theory.     The  loyalty  of  the  official'  to  his  conscience  takes  \nx- 
cedence  over  his  loyalty  to  his  chief.     Here  was  a  concrete  or 
objective  situation  with  certain  values  involved  already.    Loy 
alty  said  only,  ^stick  to  your  highest  value.'     It  did  not  decid< 
which.     Gen.  R.  E.  Lee  had  to  choose  between  his  loyalt.y^  tr> 
state  rights  and  to  the  Union.       The  advice  of  ^loyalty^  is'— 
study  the  whole  situation  and  when  choosing— choose  with  de- 
cision and,  having  placed  one's  hand  to  the  plow,  turn  not  back 
AVhen  deciding  between  two  good  causes,  the  principle  of  loyalty 
^'commands  simply  but  imperatively  that  since  I  must  serve, 
and  since,  at  this^ critical  moment,  my  only  service  must  take 
the  form  of  a  choice  between  loyalties,  I  shall  choose,  even  in: 
my  ignorance,  what  form  my  service  is  henceforth  to  take.''' 
The  principle  of  choice  is — choose !     Having  chosen  I  must  not 
look  back  nor  regret.     ^'Decide,  knowingly  if  you  can,  i^^^aut- 
Iv  if  you  must,  but  in  any  case  decide  and  have  no  fear."*^     And 
this  is  the  guidance  where  loyalties  conflict!        ''Indecision 
would  of  itself  constitute  a  sort  of  decision."     And  it  is  better 
to  act  for  one  of  the  causes  than  to  do  nothing.     Here  we  have 
no  real  dealing  with  a  situation  as  objective.     It  is  rather  the! 
subjective.     Where   further  objective   information   is  what  is 
needed,  we  have  the  subjective  maxim — Choose.® 

In  ethics  we  are  seeking  for  some  absolute  rule  or,  if  net 
absolute,  something  at  least  that  comes  to  us  with  a  note  vi 
authority.     We  find  in  practice  that  all  particular  rules  aro| 
tentative,  except  the  rule — 'observe  rule'.       This  is  the  ''la^v 
that  there  shall  be  law"   (Palmer).     Loyalty  to  loyalty  is  of| 
this  absolute,  subjective'  type.     It  is  a  fixed  principle  of  dutv 
rather  than  a  guide  in  particular  cases.     The  real  criterion  bo- 
hind  loyalty — the  one  involved  not  merely  theoretically  in  the  I 
subject  but' in  the  object  also  in  all  truly  objective  situations— | 
is  the  social  unity,  the  kingdom  of  ends,  a  union  of  selves  in- 
spired by  social  ideals. 

While  this  is  so  it  is  not  a  useless  emphasis  which  we  have 
here  on  loyalty.  It  is  an  absolute  rule  even  if  its  absolutism 
does  not  seem  to  help  much  in  actual  situations.  If  we  aro| 
object-minded  and  each  actual  situation  in  which  we  find  our- 
selves is  a  subject-object  situation,  it  is  not  altogether  useless 


2.     The    Philosophy    of    Loyalty,    pp.    135  137.     3.  Ibid,    pp    183  193.     4.    Ibid,    r 
189.5.     Tbtd.    p.    180. 


to  see  what  the  subject  side  implies.  It  is  an  'anticipation  of 
attainment'  to  view  in  vision  the  self  as  in  all  loval  and  harmon- 
ious  relation  with  his  fellows.  It  will  nerve  his  actual  deeds 
to  justice  and  equity  to  have  this  good  will  in  intention.  In 
this  sense  it  is  a  guiding  ideal,  however  blind®  it  is  in  the  details 
of  accomplishment.  But  is  is  subjective  and  hence  abstract 
though  it  "is  never  a  merely  pious  wish".^  Other  ethical  theor- 
ies seek  some  objective  end,  such  as  happiness,  well-being,  self- 
realization,  at  least  some  concrete^^  ideal  for  action. 

This  'retreat  into  the  self  has  a  peculiar  value  from  Royce's 
point  of  view.  If  loyalty  is  a  formal  principle,  the  "form"  is 
significant.  The  subject  is  social  in  his  true  or  full  nature. 
To  recognize  always  that  one's  good, — whatever  it  may  be, — 
must  be  one  which  shall  imike  or  keep  one  a  true  member  of  the 
community,  is  to  keep  in  mind  a  'formal'  idea  which  will  have 
its  effect  socially.  One  is  committed  to  the  cause  of  'good  will 
among  men'.  But  this  loyalty,  seen  thus  as  ideal,  is  rather  the 
primal  individuation,  the  potential,  than  the  actual  becoming 
of  a  personality.  This  is  wrought  out  in  the  objective  situa- 
tions of  life.  We  are  to  face  this  process  with  the  recognition 
that  w^e  are  'members  one  of  another'.  This  is  to  be  loval, 
even  to  'be  loyal  to  loyalty.'  It  is  the  assertion  of  the  aufon- 
omy  of  a  social  being.  In  any  ])ossible  action  I  will  be  free. 
The  choice  is  to  be  my  own.  It  must  be  a  unforced^^  loyalty 
to  a  cause  that  fascinates  me.  This  cause  I  view  beforehand 
as  of  necessity  one  of  good  will  to  all.  But  it  is  a  prophecy  of 
individuation  rather  than  its  attainment. 


IL 


Against  loyalty  as  elaburattMl  there  seems  a  fiirtlior  (.♦riricisni. 
It  is  essentially  altruistic.  Rovce  attacks  the  individualism  of 
Xietzsche^^  whose  'will  to  jwwer'  he  characterizes  as  "power 
idealized  through  its  social  efficacy,  and  conceived  in  terms  of 
some  more  or  less  vague  dream  of  a  completely  perfected 
and  ideal,  but  certainly  social,  individual  man."  Despite  this 
appreciative  interpretation,  Iloyce  goes  on  to  show  the  objections 
to  "defining  your  personal  good  in  terms  merely  of  power."^" 
the  attainment  of  power  is  so  uncertain,  the  lust  for  it  becomes 

1^.     It   would   seem  also   that   experimentally   one   sl.ould  be  prepared   to   look   back   and 
make    ch.injjos    if    experience    should    sugprest    it. 


Iloijce    and   Indic'uluulioa 


50 

insatial.le,  au.l   it  niea«.  iu.-rcasing  oppovtunity  for  conflict 
S:    Ihis  ;eo.«  to  be  giving  'power'  a  sort  o    ^^^^^^ 
force  meaning.     If  we  read  power  in  terms  of  mechanical  skill, 
th^n:^;  oflhe  orator,  the  art  of  tl>e  teacher,  .esee^power.i 
another  form  than  the  one  akin  to  violence..     E%en  m  the   loy 
a"y  to  oyal.y'  life,  since  I  must  act,  I  will  be  in  ^-^f  ^^ -"' 
£t      llycl  challenges  the  individualist  to  set  about  the  task 
He \vo^^ld  lave  him%«it  his  'preliminary  g-t-lations    and 
n  J     It  seems  to  Roycc  an  ideal  with  no  content  and  surely  u 
mea!i::;;aUing  li  the  empty  claim  to  self-hood  over  agains 
the  whole  world  of  possible  deeds  and  -'^'^^^^^^ 
tentless.  Dut  have  we  not  the  same  position  if  c^e  S^stK  - bt     o 
talks  of  devotion  to  causes,  and  loyahy  to  kyaltyj     On.  mi,J. 
well  s.y-Bogin  the  life  of  loyalty  or  find  t h^  ^  ^^^;        'f 
Povce's   position   there   seems    the   exaltation   ot    Iho    t-ause. 
?hrVill  to  power'  stirs  up  troubie  with  «tl>evs.     This  is  an 
objection  to  it      Loyalty  to  a  cause  wU    ^J^^  ^^J^'^ 
the  absence  of  self  assertion?     Ha-.e  i    ne  n     i 
seheme  to  trust  my  own  judgiuent  about    -"^^  ^^  J,  ^J^^^; 
c.,n  T  convince  one  who  has  a  rival  cause  that  I  am  iinpaiti. 
i^iLed,  and  impersonaH     Or  if  I  a^.id  all  setting  up  c.f  .^ 
own  iudgnunit  and  accept  that  of  another,  am      not  u    dnu 
nf  ho  nn-  clnssed  as  a  mere  partisan  of  another  1       Jn  cithci 
elnl  Un'S  vn.h  trouble.     It  is  not  the  'will  to  power'  alone 
that  has  warfare  in  its  carc^er. 

Prof  Pv-wce's  statements  make  much  of  such  terms  as  'fidel 
itv"devotion',  'self-surrender'.     He  feels  the  "essential  yirre- 
^    Stible  forces  of  the  whole  universe""  quoting  Spinoza's  "Th 
'   ;:        of  m  n  is  infinitely  surpa-'i  by  the  power  of  externa 
'     Thhi's  "     It  seems  an  attitude  of  defence,  rather  than  one  o 
t taci;:     The  great  inventions  or  creaticms  are  not  -n  ^irov^ 
a  direct  command  of  nature's  laws.     It  is  rather  that  ki.ov 
lecte"    and  obedience  to  nature's  laws  give  powers  of  achieve^ 
meS  not  otherwise  possessed.     "Our  creativity   in  any  field 

7^^  v..   Hockin.  -Th.   Mo.„in«  o<  God  in  Hu«..n  Experience"  p,   193   H.  «.• 

■      the   iirdovum  universal  and  its   value. 
8       The   Philosuyliy   of    I-oyalty,   p.    186.      9.   Ibid.    PP.  .  •  ^,  ..ti,j 

u'";::'Tr:Phi,osophy  o. .,,...  pp.  -o  ^i.  12.  n>id.  pp.  ..  as.  ^s, ,«.. 

382      The   Problem  of   Christianity.    I,   P.    l^-^- 
1-^    -The   Philosophy   of   Loyalty"    PP.    87-89.      14.    Ibid.   p.    8H 
15    W      E      Hocl«      'The   Meanin,   of   God  in  Human   Experience      P-   XMI. 
If).  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  '>3. 


Uuycc    and   ludlcidaaiiun  oV 

follows  faithfully  the  character  of  our  passivity  in  that  same 
field,  and  varies  with  it  not  inversely  but  directly.''^^  Burbank 
has  exercised  something  of  this  power  to  create.  The  Xietz- 
schean  Svill  to  be  mighty'  may  seem  an  ''empty  proclanning 
of  a  moral  sovereignty  over  your  life'V^  but  the  emphasio  on 
'devotion'  to  causes  seems  to  denature  one  on  the  other  side. 
Even  though  there  be  the  unforced  and  personal  choice  of  a 
'cause-  that  fascinates  me,  loyalty  will  tend  to  a  minimum  since 
it  lacks  the  urge  of  the  truly  or  fully  personal..  It  will  lack 
the  full  initiative  which  I  submit  cannot  exist  w^here  one  has 
'surrendered'  self.  We  are  not  held  to  a  choice  between  a 
selfish^"  and  an  altruistic  life.  One  cannot  unself  oneself. 
The  higher  self,  the  fully  personal,  has  its  legitimated^  right 
to  the  sense  of  happiness  and  victory.  Because  the  ruthless 
violent  self  demands  such  satisfaction,  the  demand  in  itself  is 
not  therebv  wrona*. 


III. 


Lovaltv  has  been  criticised  as  abstractlv  formal  or  subjec- 
tive.  It  is  submitted  further  that  Interpretation,  as  a  cogni- 
tive process,  is  not  primary.  It  is  concerned  with  predicates, 
with  the  'what'  of  things,  and  hence  it  has  no  originating  pcwer 
over  existential  propositions.  As  every  interpretation,  includ- 
ing a  theoretical  first  one,  presumes  the  existence  of  the  minds 
addressed  by  the  interpreter,  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  minds 
l)eyond  my  present  self  cannot  be  a  product  of  interpretation. 

It  would  seem  then  that  in  Interpretation,  as  cognitive,  we 
have  a  stage  or  partial  phase  only  of  a  developed  individual 
life.  It  may  reinforce  the  more  primitive  individuation 
but  has  not  caused  it.  This  more  primitive  individuation  is 
that  which  has  not  only  separated  me  as  a  discrete  individui^l 
but  has  supplied  that  simpler  and  more  direct  or  immediate 
knowledge  of  other  mind,  which  the  interpretative  process  takes 
up  and  elaborates.  Interpretation,  as  cognitive,  is  the  name 
for  a  certain  stage  or  formation  of  the  individuating  process. 

In  the  iirst  two  periods,  Royce  holds  that  in  iinite  thought, 
ideally  viewed,   (not  as  concretely  embodied)  we  have  a  true 


^7.  In   Aristotle's   Ethics   Book   IX,    Ch.    VIII.,    this   point    is   discussed,    to    distinguish 
two    kinds    of    self-love.      To    Aristotle    the    highest    a    man    can    seek    is    self-love   of 
The  higher   type.      In   this    it   seems   to   me   Aristotle   is  nearer   the  truth   than   is 
Rovcp. 


r^^> 


Ruyce    and    ladivulualioii 


liotjce    and    LndicidaaUon 


O-J 


unity  in  varictv"  In  interpretation  wc  have  the  true  trian. 
Is  it  not  simply,  as  before,  ideally  viewed  ?  Is  not  its  attempt- 
ed concrete  embodiment  forever  incomplete?  As  \vith  the  finite 
thinker  in  the  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  Interpretation 
is  of  the  nature  of  reflection  on  or  after  the  event.  The  fact 
of  individuality  already  is,  ^vhen  interpretation^  takes  up  Us 
work. 

It  is  submitted  further  that  iiilorpretatl.m  as  cognitive,  is, 
as  in  the  case  of  'thought'  in  the  first  period,  not  a  basis  upon 
^vhich  to  found  a  doctrine  of  the  concrete  world  as  an  inter- 
T>rotation.  Cognition  knows  nothing  of  a  concrete  union,  i- 
is  a  Inoirlcdge  of  reality.  To  capitalize  the  word  and  speak 
of  it  a.,  the  concrete  world  is  a  conceptual  construetiuu.  in- 
terpretation deals  with  the  "what"  nf  things. 

IV. 

In  ,his  later  period  uc  find  s.ill  the  presence  of  the  abso-  ' 
lutism  which  means  a  completed  e.xix^ne.ice.  It.  '«  *'«" 
(thoudi  not  proved)  to  be  synonymous  with  'Ibe  l)muc  Com- 
mimit'y'.  The  Absolute  is  an  '"experience  which  itself  includos 
a  synoptic  survey  of  the  whole  of  time.""  In  .Icveloping,  from 
finite  individuality  the  idea  of  a  commiMiity  reference  is  made 
to  "the  power  of  an  individual  self  to  extend  his  life,  in  ideal 
fashion,  so  as  to  regard  it  as  including  past  and  future  which 
lie  far  awav  in  time  and  which  he  does  not  now  personally  re- 
memVerr^  We  are  told  "the  genuine  l>erson  lives  in  the  tar 
off  .past  and  future  as  well  as  in  the  present.""  The  abso.ut. 
or  the  Divine  Community  including  all  time,  past,  present  and 
future,  is  held  to  be  the  logical  implication. 

18,  T!,is  objction  to  Royce  is  d..nlt  « ith  mar..  '"'1^  "'  ^/';{.h"-.w„ricl  and  the  Indi- 
19     S"f  Tlu^  It.'ligious   Aspect   of  Philosophy.    l>.   378,   and    ine 

the   inside  of   what   is   taHng   pUce   wh^e^^^^^  ^^    ^^^^ 

engaged    in   his    Rcanh  ^^^^V/ if  sol  f      Interpretation   is   what   the  process  lacks, 

t.tion'  into  tho  -"^"'t'Ynd' k  s  P  eciselv  as  sUU  la  king  the  interpretation  souglU. 
not  wh:U  It  possesses;   and  it  is  prec^sel>    as    ^  ^       knowledge,    is   a   cogn. 

and  is  still  looking  %^l^  ^l^^^'^Z^ll^.^l^  in  question  is  all  over  when  th. 
tive  funct.cn  at  all.  Ihe  ,^y;;^  \';''^/"^i^ti„,tio;  between  discovering  and  the  d.s- 
^l^J^^-SX^Sr  r.^'l^^  ^  tUe  results  in  knowledge  than  to  tl. 
'process   in  being'   which  is  'knowing'.  ^^ 

21.   The  Problem  of   Christianiiy,   p.   286.      ^u.    Ibid.   p.  ^ 

Tltifl .    p.    <^'^- 


In  the  second  period  this  time-transcendence  has  been  illus- 
trtited  bv  the  analogy  from  the  finite  where  "in  our  conscious- 
ness, the  now  of  experience  does  mean  just  such  an  actual, 
brief  but  still  finite,  interval  or  period  of  time,  within  which 
and  during  which  events  succeed  one  after  another."^*  This  is 
a  ^time-span',  and  "an  eternal  consciousness  is  definable  as  onn 
for  which  all  the  facts  of  the  whole  time  stream,  just  so  far  as 
time  is  a  final  form  of  consciousness,  have  the  same  tvpe  of  unity 
that  your  present  momentary  consciousness,  even  now  within  its 
little  span,  surveys.''^^  The  Infinite  has  an  all-inclusive  time- 
span. 

In  this  third  period,  "the  time-order,  in  its  sense  and  inter- 
connection, is  known  to  us  through  interpretation,  and  is  neither 
a  conceptual  nor  yet  a  perceptual  order.'^^^  "Time,  for  in- 
stance, expresses  a  system  of  essentiaUy  social  relations.  The 
present  interprets  the  past  to  the  future"^^  and  "this  whole  time- 
process^®  is  in  some  fashion  spanned  by  one  insight  which  sur- 
veys the  unity  of  its  meaning Its  value  is  the  one  em- 
pirically known  to  us  at  any  one  moment  when  we  clearly  cor- 
trast  two  of  our  own  ideas  and  find  their  mediator."^^  Here 
we  no  longer  have  a  time-span,  but  yet  the  Interpretatio)i  is 
not  timeless.  Yet  as  quoted  in  the  previous  paragraph,  this 
experience  is  a  "synoptic  survey'\  It  is  submitted  that  there 
are  two  conceptions  of  time  given  here.  One  is  the  time-span,  the 
other  an  interpretation. 

We  have  then  the  doctrine  of  a  totuin  simuJ ,  a  closed  or 
finished  world.  This  persists  through  all  periods  and  if  held 
too  strictly,  leaves  no  room  for  free  individuals  unless  it  be  in 
a  sort  of  passive  reflection  or  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of 
life.     There  is  no  room  for  will  in  action. 


If,  neglecting  the  logic  of  a  'finished  universe',  we  con^ider 
the  nature  and  function  of  the  higher  or  super-personal  unities, 
much  will  turn  on  whether  they  are  actual  in  any  positive  form 


24.   The  World   and   the   Individual,    I,    p.    421.    25.   Ibid.    I,    425. 
2R.   The  Problem  of  Christianity,    11,    IS.'i.      27.   Ibid.   II,    280. 

28.  Royce  notes  that  Bergson  "rightly  asserts  that  the  world  of  any  present  moment 
of  time  is  a  summary  of  the  results  of  all  past  experience."  It  is  an  interpre- 
tation. The  whole  interprets  its  past  in  the  present  to  the  future.  But  this 
future  is  not  included.  It  is  an  open  door,  and  the  source  of  endless  novelties. 
(See  Creative  Evolution,  p.  340.)  To  posit  a  synoptic  survey  of  the  whole  of 
time  is  to  put  past  and  future  on  a  par  in  the  Absolute  and  to  make  time  unreal. 
2P.   The   Problem   of   Christinrity.    IT.    271.       (Italics   are   mine). 


.«.•«.  |.    ^  S  KXi   -wf  N^.'^MV-  4*.   .  ' 


iiffl^.'iiwlaaiaii 


^la.-^.&;6t:\^«fe&»:-AV-.ii^ft;^ 


^^^■■^ 


in  ,he  world.     They  are  defined  ns  true  "-l--^''"^'^^     ''^'^ 
hiohly  organized  comnmuity  is  as  truly  a  lunnan  being  as  ^.e 
a  e    ndtvfdually  human.     Only  a  conununity  is  not  what  .e 
ZaUy  call  a  lunnan  being;  because  it  has  no  one  -parate  an^l 
internally  well-knit  organism  of  its  own;  and  because  it.  mind 
if  you  atu-ibute  to  it  any  one  mind,  is  therefore  not  mamfeste.. 
through  the  expressive  movements  of  such  a  separate  human 
or-antsm  "-     Now  if  this  means  an  actual  community— a  true 
S  idual-having  a  mind  and  a  will,  it  is  but  logic  to  inter- 
pret such  as  giving  it  supreme  and   if  need  ^-..^--^  1-^^, 
over  the  individual  members  of  the  ~""*J„i  J  ^e/e  w 
community  is  however  a  very  plastic  aftair      Only  ^vhere  we 
have  an  autocracy  does  it  really  act  as  a  whole  -<1  1-- f         , 
individual  mind  overrides  all  other  mmds.     In  \d"nociac> 
it  is  different,  the  common  will  is  not  actual  but  ideal      We 
L-     ather  a  'collective  will.     -The  State  is  a  reality  which^s 
what  it  is  bv  dint  of  the  combined  resolves  of  many  human 
w  H     throuoh  time;  we  individuals  find  the  state  as  something 
apptnlv  finished    standing  there  as  something  to  be  accept- 
ed    but  at  no  time  does  the  existence  of  this  object  becoiw,  so 
ndependent  that  it  can  continue  to  hold  its  reality  apart    rom 
the  good  will  which  from  moment  to  moment  recreate,  it 
tL  state,  regarded  thus,  will  not  have  that  over-ind.vidual.ty 
I hieh  will  nfean  supreme  power.^'^     ^'i^^'^X  CZ 
at  times  as  if  the  higher  unities  are  ^'•"-"'^l^"^"'^^;' '^'^.^J^S 
droDDed  the  emphasis  found  in  his  earlier  book,  that  the  wU 
of  s'uch  community  is  reached  through  individual  insight  and 
choice.     We  have  an  oscillation  Ijotween  the  two  views. 

I  would  submit  that  in  speaking  of  "tsvo  levels  of  human 

life  the  level  of  the  individual  and  the  1^-  "^  ^ 'TfX 
itv  "'*  Rovce  leaves  the  door  open  to  such  literalizing  of  this 
over-individuality  as  can  mean  coercion  of  the  individua  mem- 
Z:  fnd  hence  their  enslavement.  But  if  it  is  -^i'^f  ^^';^; 
the  consciousness  of  individuals  we  have  in  place  of  the   le^e 

T  i««      it-iMc^  »re  mine  as  marking  a  BJgniflcant 

30.  The  Prob.™  »«  Chri...an.O.     .   P„;„«,^,.,]rromr«.." 

dom  would   depend  on  its   temporary   violation. 
34.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,   H,    57.     See  aUo  I,    165  ff. 


lluyce    and   Individual  ion 


oo 


of  the  eoiimuuiity'  ^vllat  might  be  called  the  'fully  personal/ 
This  is  the  social  level  of  human  individuality.  The  efforts 
to  embody  this  in  society  and  in  the  state  are  ever  tentative. 
Without  a  doubt  the  experience  of  the  past  is  the  heritage  of 
each  new  individual.  The  organization  of  society  provides 
for  this  continuity  of  life.  But  the  new  breaks  in  to  life 
through  the  individual.  God  does  not  speak  to  the  crowd  or 
to  the  community  as  such.  In  some  brain'^^  his  message  comes 
to  explicit  consciousness.  Life  for  the  individual  must  at  its 
best  be  fully  personal.      His  decisions  must  ever  be  his  own. 


VI 


A  further  cMJiitentioii  (•(mcerniiig  interpretation  is  this.  As 
interpretation  in  the  finite  it  is  a  cognitive  process.  This  im- 
plies a  growing  knowledge  of  reality,  but  not  such  widening  of 
experience  as  concrete  or  direct  and  immediate  as  to  point  logi- 
cally to  a  concrete  Interpretation.  The  capitalizing  of  the 
word  must  not  hide  this  significant  difference. 

"In  the  concrete,  then,  the  universe  is  a  ccmimunity  of  in- 
terpretation whose  life  comprises  and  uiiiiies  all  the  social  com- 
munities which,  for  any  reason,  we  know  to  be  real  in  the  em- 
]>irical  world  which  our  social  and  our  historical  sciences 
study."^^  This  ''single  Community  of  Interpretation"^'  marks 
a  union  of  a  cognitive  process  with  the  objects  such  as  we  do 
aiot  have  in  the  finite.  Further  we  do  not  have  that  which 
shows  any  tendency  towards  such  union.  We  have  that  only 
which  can  give  by  direct  contrast  this  union.  And  contrast 
'loes  not  carry  with  it  necessarily  the  predicate  of  existence. 

One  would  say  that  Royce  would  have  come  much  nearer  the 
mark  logically  had  he  reached  the  view  of  a  community  of  In- 
lerpreters.  This  'Community  of  Interpretation'  is  the  new  title 
for  the  Absolute.  I  am  unable  to  see  that  Royce  has  found 
in  the  facts  of  the  social  as  logically  implicated  this  Community 
of  Interpretation.     This  Community  in  its  members  possesses 


35.  Lowell  in  his  poem  "on  reading  Burn.s  in  a  workman's  car. 
"All    thoughts    that    mould    the    age,    begin 
"Deep  down   within   the  primitive   soul, 
"And   from   the   many   slowly   upward   win 
"To    one    who    grasps    the    whole. 
"In  his   wide  brain   the  feeling  deep 
"That   struggled   on   the   many's   tongue 
"Swells   to   a    tide   of    thought  "    etc. 


5G 


Roycc    and    I  ncU  rid  nation 


lioyce    and'  I ndiriduafion 


r>   4 


a  continuallv  wider  knowledge  (or  interpr(>tation)  of  reality. 
It  has  not  a  direct  and  immediate  and  ever  widening  expenenfr 
of  reality.  The  past  is  carried  in  symbolic  or  other  memory 
form.  The  future  is  not  yet.  Nothing  indicates  an  'Interpre 
tatioa'  with  -synoptic  survey'.  As  with  'Thought'  and  ^\lll 
we  have  here  in  the  case  of  'Interpretation'  something  gamed 
not  bv  logic,  but  by  a  conceptual  contrast. 

We  have  two  views  of  an  ultimate  somewhat  externally 
run  together  here:  the  Divine  Community  in  a  real  time-order, 
carrying  with  it  its  past  in  a  true  interpretation  to  the  present 
facing  of  the  future  and  an  Absolute,  ^S^ewing  the  whole  time 
process  by  a  single  synopsis"-  and  thus  inclusive  of  the  future. 
The  first' gives  a  teleology  where  the  process  is  real  and  signiti- 
cant  The  latter  makes  the  process  in  time  a  mere  means  to 
the  significant  end.  The  reality  which  is  eternally  present  is 
essentially  static.  The  former  gives  to  time  its  true  reality. 
The  latter,  in  including  the  future,  renders  time  meaningless 
to  us. 


36.  The  Problem  of  Christianity.  II.  p.  272.     37.   Ibid.  II.   272.     38.  Ibid  II.   271. 


V 


C'HAl^TKK  VII  r. 


Summary  on  the  Principle  of  Indiriduafion. 


I. 


In  the 
IIS  found 
I  Hence  the 
It  can  be 
Reflection 
cm  what  is 
is  akeadv 
level. 


first  period  the  distinctiveness  of  the  human  individual 
in  'Reflection'.  The  world  is  eternally  complete, 
thought  of  the  finite  indi\ddual  must  be  an  idea  oi:ly. 
valid,  but  not  creative  or  constitutive.  We  have  in 
but  a  partial  vien^  of  individuation,  since  reflection  is 
already  given  or  existent.'^  Individuality  in  some  sense 
present,  but  in  or  through  reflection  it  attains  a  higher 


II. 


In  the  second  period  the  distinctiveness  of  the  human  individual 
is  held  to  be  the  work  of  will  or  purpose.     The  world  is  a  'com- 

leted  experience'.  Will  in  the  finite  as  achievement,  or  embodi- 
ment, finds  no  place  in  such  a  world.  The  finite  is  shut  up  to  the 
possibilities  of  clarifying  in  idea  his  purpose  or  to  defining  his 
vill.      In  so  far  as  this  remains  untried,  uucxnrcs.<^pd  or  unfulfill- 

d,  such  will  or  purpose  seems  s}Tionymous  with  clarity  of  thought. 

f  not  exactly  synonymous  with  thought,  it  is  inclusive  of  other  ele- 
nents  such  as  instincts  and  necessarv  desires,  w4iich  however  arc 
to  be  potential  rather  than  active.  If  we  mean  by  will  a  passage 
from  the  theoretical  to  the  actual  then  it  is  submitted  that  in  a 
Vompleted  experience'  there  is  no  room  for  will  in  the  finite.  We 
,i:<t  no  further  than  a  clearly  defined  purpose,  held,  as  yet,  theore- 
tically.    If  any  element  is  added  in  this  period  to  the  principle 

f  individuation  in  accounting  for  the  human  personality  it  is 
this,  that  there  must  be  (if  action  could  take  place)  such  expres- 
sion as  will  do  justice  to  the  more  instinctive  parts  of  man's  nature. 
Much  of  our  past  experience  is  still  with  us  in  the  form  of  an 
nttitude  w^hich  is  largely  non-conscious. 


John   Dewey    (in    the    Philosophical   Review    (1906)    page   472)    writing   of   thoughts 
work    says — "It    serves    to   valuate   organizations    already   existent   as   biological    func- 
tions and  instincts,  while,  as  itself,  a  biological  activity,  it  redirects  them  to  new 
conditions   and   results."    (Black-face   type   is  mine.) 


wjs^.>;^:g 


58 


Ixoyce   and   Indivkhiulloa 


lioi/ce  and  Iiuliuidiialion 


5;t 


III. 


In  the  third  peri..<l,  the  principle  of  individuation  is  loyalty 
to  a  cause,  which,  metaphysically  viewed,  is  loyalty  to  a  commutt- 
ity  or  in  its  cognitive  fomi  Interpretation.^  It  is  still  a  'timshed 
world  when  a  synoptic  survey  includes  past,  present  and  fithire. 
We  can  allow  then,  to  the  finite,  interpretation  as  a  theoretical 
or  reflective  process  only.  Except  in  the  novelty  of  the  triadic  form 
by  which  man's  social  nature  is  proved,  it  seems  identical  with 
the  positiooi  of  the  first  F"od  where  reflection  is  taken  as  the 
in-inciide  of  iiidividuiition. 


IV 


If  however,  we  hold  that  the  facts  of  finite  experience  do  not 
imply  a  'complete.l  exi>eriencc',  and  if  we  hold  that  our  author 
has  brought  this  theory  of  the  Absolute  to  the  facts  rather  than 
found  it  there,  then  we  may  ignore  the  doctrine  of  the  Absolute 
and  note  Royce's  exposition  of  the  place  and  individuation  of  he 
human  being  in  the  universe.  The  human  achievements  in  ,he 
time-experience  will  no  longer  be  negligible  temporal  replicas  of 
eternal  realities. 

That  which  constitutes  the  finite  individual  a  human  iierion- 
ality  is  the  power  of  mind.  It  will  not  be  reflection  alone,  con- 
sidered as  a  contemplative  observation  of  the  world-order,  v  et 
it  will  involve  such.  It  will  not  be  will  or  purpose  as  a  clearly 
defined  intention.  The  concrete  actions  will  involve  the  fultiU- 
in-  of  this  purpose.  'A  satisfied  will'  can  then  be  posited  as  a 
phase  of  the  questh.n  of  individuation.  In  interpretation  we 
have  a  renewed  emphasis  on  the  cognitive.  "Reflection  involves 
an  interior  conversation.'"     It  is  social. 

It  must  be  noted  also  that  whether  the  principle  of  individua 
tion  be  reflection,  will,  loyalty  or  the  'will  to  interpret ,  we  fin. 
all  are  used  in  developing  an  ethical  theory  which  I  have  called 
self-alienating.     We  are  to  live  the  life  of  the  whole  m    imper- 
sonal' service.     We  are  to  take  'comfort'  while  our  lives  are  in- 
complete that  they  are  caught  up  in  the  triumph  of  eternity.     J  o 

,~i;Z:Zet.n..  .e  .0,0  than  » J-ere,,  co..i,iv^  o,  reHecU.e  p^oe.^  »ueh 

an    activity    as   means   loyaltj    to    a    cause,      ims 
reasoning  is  a  life  which  interprets  the  past  to   the  future. 
3.     The  Problem  of  Christianity,  II,   138. 


fiich  a  ^caiise'  we  are  to  *devoto'  ourselves  ^strengthenecr  by  tlu- 

knowledge  that  we  shall  share  or  do  share  in  that  eternal  triumph. 

All  this  seems  a  little  short  of  the  highest.     ^'Such  vicarious 

Happiness  must  be,  in  fact,  the  greater  part  of  the  actual  joy  of 

iny  living  man/'*  But  one's  highest  comfort  must  be  found  with- 
in one's  own  will.     If  the  world  of  human  actions  are  contribu- 

ions  to  reality,  then  the  making  of  some  contribution,  in  some 
way,  how^ever  infinitesimally  small,  is  the  source  of  the  highest 
satisfaction  and  will  mark  the  highest  reach  of  the  individual. 

i  one  sublimates  the  rather  empty  and  ruthless  self-assertion  of 

Nietzsche  or  unites  it  with  the  finest  and  most  intelligent  al 

truism,  one  will  get  that  which  is  most  characteristic  of  man  as 

in  individual.     The  principle  of  individuation  will  be  the  urge 

>f  life  toward  real  expression,  a  wnll  to  contribute  or  to  create. 

S^ietzsche  calls  it  the  'Svill  to  power." 


W.   E.   Hocking,   The   Meaning  of   Cod   in  Human   Experience,   p.   49' 


60 


lioyce    and   Indtculuatlon 


Iloi/cc    and   Indlridaallon 


GI 


I'nrf    II 


COXSTKrOTIVK   (  lUTKlSM. 


CHAPTER    IX. 


The    Ahsohifr. 


I 


It'  we  count  liiiitc  fact  real  enough  to  serve  as  a  point  of 
departure,  what  we  achieve  logically  must  not  destroy  that 
reality  in  our  starting  point.  Yet  free  individuals  in  a  real 
time-experience  and  an  Absolute  whose  world  is  eternally  and 
completely  i)erfect  are  two  incompatible*  conceptions.  An 
Absolute  whose  thought  is  eternally  fulfilled  means  a  wovlfi 
which  is  finished.  There  are  no  loose  edges  for  it  is  given  all 
at  once.  The  perfect  realization  of  th«  thcaght  of  the  Absolute 
is  eternal.  This  leaves  no  room  for  free  individuals  and  there 
is  indeed  no  reason  for  any  temporal  manifestation.  If  wo 
pass  over  this  ultimate  lack  of  reason  why  there  should  be  any 
finite  processes  in  time,  or  any  manifestation  of  free  indi- 
viduals, and  if  we  admit  ilie  unexplained  existence  of  free  indi- 
viduals, we  are  at  a  loss  to  see  what  the  finite  individual  can 
do.  The  universe  is  eternally  comi)lete.  The  finite  beina  then 
can  make  no  difference  to  reality  for  all  that  needs  doing  is 
done  and  that  eternally.  If  we  grant  further  that  something 
is  done,  then  since  it  can  be  no  contribution  to  reality,  that 
something  must  be  of  the  nature  of  appearance.  This  would 
make  the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite  an  Appearance. 
Keality  relation.  What  further  can  be  the  nature  of  thi^ 
appearance?  What  is  done  must  not  nuike  any  diiference  to 
tlie  whole,  not  even  in  the  way  of  novelty.      There  must  l>e  no 


1.  John  Dewey  (in  Phil.  Rev.  1906,  p.  469  f.)  says  "idealism  is  condemned  to  move 
buck  and  forth  between  two  inconsistent  interpretations  of  a  priori  thought.  It 
is  taken  to  mean  both  the  orgranized,  the  regrulated,  the  informed,  established 
character  of  experience,  an  order  immanent  and  constitutional;  and  that  which 
organizes,  regulates,  forms,  synthesizes,  a  power  transcendent  and  noumenal.'  .  .  . 
"th«  first  sense,  if  validated,  would  leave  us  at  most  an  empirical  fact,  whose 
importance  would  make  it  none  the  less  empirical.  The  second  sense,  by  itself, 
would  bo  so  thoroughly  transcendental  that  while  it  would  exalt  'thou.;at'  in 
theoi-y,  it  would  deprive  the  categories  of  that  constitutional  position  within  ex- 
perience." This  criticism  is  valid  if  the  whole  is  a  'completed  experience'.  In 
that  case  the  'thought'  of  the  finite  individual  can  contribute  nothing  to  experience. 
No  doubt  the  finite  finds  qualities  which  are  primary  but  it  supplies  or  creates  the 
se^'ondnry   ones. 


originality.  It  must  be  an  appearance  of  what  is  already 
clcrnallv  existent.  One  must  seon  to  live  the  life  that  is 
eternally  perfect,  and  to  serve  the  Universal  Will.  The  ideal 
of  duty  for  such  finite  beings  will  be  the  service  of  'impcr- 
sonaF  ends  and  hence  a  life  of  self-alienation.  If  we  allow 
the  unexjdained  existence  and  the  unaccounted-for  activity  of 
finite  and  free  individuals,  the  logical  form  of  life  would  be 
this  life  of  resignation  and  devotion.  And  this  doctrine  of 
self-alienation  is  found  throughout  the  philosophy  of  Prof. 
Kovce.  It  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  doctrine  of  a 
closed  world  or  a  completed  experience  is  derivable  logically 
from  finite  experience.^  But  if  we  forget  logic  for  the  moment 
and  posit  free  individuals  within  a  'finished  world  their 
manifestations  are  appearance,  negligible  temporal  replicas  of 
eternal  realities. 

As  brought  out  in  liis  first  book,  the  ilnite,  as  thinker,  i.i 
able  to  understand,  and  passively  to  know  the  nature  of  the 
whole.  He  is  a  valid  thinker.  But  such  thinking  makes  no 
real  difference  to  the  whole.  It  might  be  objected  that  as 
thinking  is  a  form  of  existence  even  the  moments  of  reflection 
as  novelties  would  be  impossible  in  a  ^completed  ex})erience\ 
But  of  course  a  finite  thinker  assumes  the  validitv  of  thought 
even  if  he  were  trying  to  deny  it.  This  capacity  for  thought, 
enables  the  finite  individual  to  understand  the  Vv'orld  process 
and  gives  him  that  which  he  may  copy  in  the  life  of  appearance 
which  alone  is  open  to  him.  This  copying  implies  the  se^f- 
alienation  which  seems  to  be  the  ethical  do<^trine  of  our  author. 

Finite  beings,  following  this  vicarious  idern,  are  to  seek 
^'imjKBrsonaP'^  ends  and  organizations.  In  sucli  attainment  we 
^'lose  our  lives''*  as  separate  private  selves.  ''We  are  instru- 
ments"^  unable  ourselves  to  "attain  the  Absolute  Moral  in- 
sight."*^  The  "vast  ocean  of  life"^  or  the  ''surging  tides  of  the 
Infinite  Ocean"^  receive  us  who  are  "drops  in  this  ocean  of  the 
Absoute  tnith.''^ 


2.  It  should  be  noted  that  as  we  regard  finite  experience,  we  sw  a  growth  in  iii- 
clusiveness.  But  it  is  our  knowledge  of  reality  which  is  becoming  greater,  not 
an  ever-widening  of  experionce  as  direct  and  immediate  relation  to  objects.  In 
"The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy"  pp.  393,  405,  Royce  speaks  of  an  "organism 
of  thought"  and  the  "organic  unitv  of  a  series  of  judgments".  This  seems  to  im- 
ply that  our  experience  as  direct  is  ever  widening,  which  is  not  the  case.  See  on 
this  point  A    K.  Rogers  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  vol.    12,   p.   48  f. 

3.  The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  pp.  211-213,  464.      4.  Und.  442,  see  aLso  181. 

200  f.,   193.  218  f,      5.  Ibid.  215.      6.  Ibid.  168.     7.  Ibid.   216.   8.   Ibid  217. 
0  .    Tbifl    4  n  . 


02 


Royce    and   Lidicidaallon 


lluijce    and   Indicidnalion 


C 


II. 

But  lioyee  writes  of  the  tiiiile  as  a  'part'  of  the  whole. ^  In 
the  Supplementary  Essay  in  the  first  volume  of  The  World 
and  the  Individual  this  part-whole  relation  is  dealt  with  from 
analogies  found  in  the  mathematical  sciences.  In  a  Self- 
Kepresentative  System,  the  part  is  equal  to  the  whole  or  is  the 
image  of  the  whole.  In  this  part-whole  relation,  Royce  means 
by  ^part\  not  any  mechanically  separated  part,  but  a  significant 
part  or  a  constituent  element  of  a  dynamic  whole.  To  follow 
this  analogv  of  the  Self-Representative  System  the  whole  ap- 
pears in  each  part^«  and  the  part  is  the  image  of  the  whole. 
We  are  ^parts'  of  the  whole  in  some  vsuch  significant  sense' 

Xow  I  submit  there  is  no  room  in  a  closed  or  finished  world 
for  'parts'  of  that  nature.  If  a  part  is  an  image  of  the  whole 
in  any  real  sense  then  it  must  have,  in  some  degree  however 
slight,  the  power  of  making  a  real  diiference  in  the  world  and 
to  the  world  such  as  we  ascribe  to  the  Universal  Will.  U  thi 
Will  of  the  Absolute  is  eternally  and  completely  fulfilled,  thei. 
the  wills  of  'parts'  of  that  Absolute  Subject  must  be  included 
in  that  which  is  fulfilled.  If  the  'part'  has  a  will,  unfulfilled 
in  the  sense  at  least  that  it  needs  the  realization  which  it  get^ 
in  time,  then  that  will  as  a  constituent  element  of  the  Absolute 
Will  is' not  yet  realized  and  hence  a  completed  experience  for 
the  whole  is  impossible. 

III. 

Time-experience  is  real  only  in  an  infinitely  unfinished  uni- 
verse. It  is  made  unreal  and  unnecessary  and  indeed  incon- 
ceivable in  a  finished  world.  Yet  it  is  from  a  bit  of  time- 
experience  that  Royce  takes  his  departure.  His  Absolutism 
seems  to  deny  the  foundation  upon  which  it  is  built.  What  is 
this  foundation?  What  doe^  the  finite  know  of  time  and  its 
transcendence  t  We  are  told  that  "the  true  distinction,  and  the 
true  connection,  between  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  aspects 
of  Being,  furnish,  in  truth,  the  basis  for  the  solution  of  thi> 
whole  problem."" 

First,  I  have  a  direct  experience  of  a  time-span.  I  hold 
in  conscimisness  more  than  the  mere,  instant  of  time.  I  may 
increase  this  a  little  in  practice.     In  this  sense  then  I  transcend 

10.    See  the  W^orld  and  the  Individual,  I,  p.   468.      11.  Ibid.  II,  347. 


I 


! 


time  that  I  can  hold  in  t?onsciousness  more  than  an  immediatelv 
|)resent  moment  or  instant.  Xow^,  in  this  time-spnn  transcen- 
dence, there  is  no  hint  of  any  ability  to  get  within  the  time-span 
the  future  as  sucli.  In  this  transcendence  too  the  full  nature  of 
time  as  actual  is  found. 

x\gaiii,  I  transcend  time  in  another  way.  Alucli  of  my  ex- 
perience is  past.  Physiologists  and  psychologists  tell  us  that 
none  of  this  is  lost.  It  exists  in  some  physiological  or  psychic 
form.  I  have  the  idea  eciuivalents  of  mv  actual  experiences 
which  are  past.  These  need  not  be  considered  as  necessarily 
in  consciousness.  They  are  implicit  in  my  attitude.  This 
being  so,  I  hold  my  past  in  any  moment  of  my  experience.  But 
here  ^gain  there  is  no  hint  of  the  inclusion  of  the  future. 

While  past  experiences  are  held,  they  are  held  in  an  inter- 
])reted  wav.  The  essential  direction  is  keot  but  abstraction  is 
made  from  the  aciiial  stretch  of  time.  The  time-s})an  trans- 
cendency alone  is  direct  and  immediate  while  the  interpreted 
form  alone  promises  all-inclusiveness.  If  the  time-span  were 
all-inclusive  the  second  form  of  time-transcendence  would  not 
figure  as  it  does  with  us.  Ihit  the  time-span  gives  no  promise 
of  such  inclusiveness.  The  other  form  has  such  promise  but 
the  future  must  have  lx3Come  present  in  order  to  take  this  form. 
This  implies  the  full  reality  of  the  time-process.  In  its  ill- 
inclusiveness  there  will  be  the  end  we  call  the  present  where  the 
})rocess  is  ever  growing  by  biting  into  the  future. 

Now  I  can  find  no  other  form  of  time-transcendence  and  in 
neither  form  is  the  future  included.  The  musician,  holding 
the  symphony  as  a  whole  present  in  a  moment  seems  to  be  a 
case  of  the  second  form  of  time-transcendence.  He  has  hear<i 
the  symphony  before,  and,  abstracted  from  the  actual  time- 
stretch,  he  holds  the  music  then  in  the  grasp  of  a  moment.  It 
is  thought-content,  not  the  actual  music. 

Now^  in  a  'finished  world'  or  'completed  experience'  all  tem- 
poral processes,  however  fragmentary  and  incomplete  are  in- 
cluded. And  not  only  are  the  pa.st  and  present  there;  but  the 
future^"  also  is  eternallv  existent.  I  submit  that  we  have  no 
analogy  in  the  finite  for  the  inclusion  of  the  future  in  such 


12.  Of  course  in  Royce's  view  of  the  Absolute  as  holding  all  of  time  in  one  time-span, 
there  is  no  future  for  the  Absolute.  But  it  is  future  for  us  and  for  us  the  future 
has  a  sense  of  non-existence.  If  it  is  actual  for  the  Absolute  it  must  exist.  Then 
what  I  may  do  to-morrow  both  is  existent  and  non-existent.  This  is  obscure. 
We  might  think  of  a  time  span  including  the  past  up  to  the  present.  But  to  in- 
clude  the   nonexistent    future   is   impossible.      At   least   it   seems    so   to    me. 


64 


lloyce    and   IndluUluuUort 


TiUijic   and   ludu'i  dual  ton 


0^ 


time-traiisceiulence  and  house  it  U  an  uiinieaning^^  statement, 
to  say  that  the  future  is  present  eternally  to  the  Absolute. 
Neither  form  of  time-transcendence  found  in  the  finite  give-^ 
a  hint  of  such  forestalling  of  the  actual  coming  of  the  future 
into  the  present.  The  form  of  time-transcendence,  as  inclusive 
of  the  future,  makes  time  unreal,  and,  as  stated  above,  thi^: 
cuts  away  the  foundation  of  fact  on  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
Absolute  is  built.  I  submit  that  we  must  hold  to  the  reality 
of  the  tem])oral  and  in  no  way  go  beyond  the  limits  set  by  what 
we  know  of  time-transcendence  in  our  own  experience. 

Prof.  Koyce  has  passed  beyond  these  limits.  Dealing  v.-ith 
time  transcendence  in  the  Absolute,  he  has  spoken  of  it  is  a 
time-span.^*  He  refers  to  the  time-span  of  the  finite,  and  car- 
ries it  over,  in  analog;)^,  to  the  time-span  of  the  ^'eternal  con 
sciousness.'''*  "The  type  of  empirical  unity  is  the  guide." 
"The  eternal  insight  observes  the  whole  of  time."^®  "Th( 
difference  is  merely  one  of  span."^^  Yet  we  find  that  the 
future  turns  up  as  included  in  the  time-span  of  the  Eternal. 
Or  again  something  of  the  second  type  of  time-transcendenc( 
is  noted  for  "Time  is  known  to  us,  both  perceptually,  as  tlit 
psychologists  would  say,  and  conceptually."^®  There  is  the 
^specious  present'  or  time-span,  and  also  the  ability  to  hold  a 
past  even  event  as  present  in  consciousness.  I  submit  that  tlien 
is  here  a  confusion  of  two  kinds  of  time  transcendence,  and  nlr^') 
a  false  inclusion  of  the  future.  The  attempt  to  leave  thr 
choice  of  the  future  to  the  determination  of  the  individuar" 


13.  Wm.  James  in  "The  Will  to  Believe"  p.  181  note  says,  "a  mind  to  whom  all  time 
is  simultaneously  present  must  see  all  things  under  the  form  of  actuality  or  under 
some  form  to  us  unknown.  If  he  thinks  certain  moments  as  ambiguous  in  their 
content  while  future,  he  must  simultaneously  know  how  the  ambiguity  will  hnv*' 
to  be  decided  when  they  are  p;vst  "      This  seems  a  gratuitous  fiction. 

In  an  address  in  the  year  1907  on  "The  Relation  of  Time  to  Eternity"    (and  quoted 
by  A.  O.  Lovejoy  in  The  Philosophical  Review,   190»,  p.  497  f.)  J.  M.   McTaggart 
says,    "When   taking  Time  as  real   as   we  must  do   in   every  day  life,   we  are  en 
deavouring  to  estimate  the  relation  of  Time  to  Eternity.      We  may  legitimately  say 
that  Eternity  is  future".  .  .  .    "We  must  conceive  of  the  Eternal  as  the  final  stage 

in  the  time  process Time  runs  up  to  Eternity  and  ceases  in  Eternity."  The 

states  of  the  time  proce.ss  ;ire  iiureasingly  adequate  in  their  representation  of 
reality.  Full  adequacy  would  mean  the  ceasing  of  the  process.  We  would  have 
timeless  reality.  Eternity  is  rather  the  successor  of  time  than  that  which  holds 
the  time- process  in  a  time- span. 

14.  If  the  Absolute  includes  the  whole  of  time  in  a  time-span  then  it  would  seem  to 
imply  that  the  particular  moments  would  be  alike  indiflferent  to  the  eternal  and 
ever  remain  fragmentary.  Yet  we  read  again  that  "when  I  consciously  and 
uniquely  will,  it  is  I  then  who  just  hero  am  God's  will  or  who  just  here  con- 
sciously act  for  the  whole."  (Compare  the  World  and  the  Individual,  I,  pp.  425 
and  468.)  Here  are  two  contradictory  ideas  of  the  whole,  one  is  static,  the  other 
dynamic.  The  former,  if  held,  would  certainly  call  for  duplicate  experiences  for 
infinite  and  finite.  The  second  would  seem  to  cancel  human  initiative  and  the 
time- span  of  the  static  theory.  Just  how  the  future  can  be  eternally  present  in 
such  a  dvnamic  whole  is  not  clear. 

15  The  World  and  the  Individual,  I,  421,  425.  16.  Ibid.  II,  144,  see  also  147.  17. 
Ibid.   II,    145.      18.   Ibid   II,    113,    115.      19.    See   Ibid   ii,    148. 


is  more  just  to  the  facts  than  to  the  logic  of  his  position.     IIow 
can  the  future  be  present  and  yet  the  choices  be  unmade? 

When  we  come  to  the  third  peri(xl,  it  seems  to  me,  lloyce 
is  using  in  his  doctrine  of  interpretation  the  second  form  of 
time-transcendence.  My  past  is  with  me  in  the  present  as  I 
face  the  future.  Every  experience  helps  to  make  me  what  I 
am  and  what  I  am  affects  the  experiences  that  I  am  having. 
My  attitude  makes  a  difference  in  the  present  to  the  events 
that  are  transpiring  with  me.  "The  time-order,  in  its  sense 
and  interconnection,  is  knowTi  to  us  through  interpretation,  and 
is  neither  a  conceptual  nor  yet  a  perceptual  order."-*^  Inter- 
pretation is  triadic.  "The  present  interprets  the  past  to  the 
future. "^^  Yet  even  this  use,  which  seems  to  give  to  the  future 
its  true  place,  is  vitiated  by  the  dragging  in  of  the  older  time- 
span  conception  and  that  too  as  inclusive  of  the  future.  The 
"whole  time-process  is  in  some  fashion  spanned  by  one  in- 
sight."" We  read  of  "a  synoptic  survey  of  the  whole  of 
time.""  It  is  based  on  "the  power  of  an  individual  self  to 
extend  his  life,  in  ideal  fashion,  so  as  to  regard  it  as  including 
past  and  future  events  which  lie  far  away  in  time,  and  whicli 
he  does  not  now  personally  remember. ^^^^  The  dragging  in  of 
the  future  on  a  basis  which  is  unreal  is  evident  in  the  passage. 
Surely  we  do  not  now  remember  the  future. 

It  should  be  emphasized  that  in  the  second  form  of  time- 
transcendence  which  we  find  in  our  experience,  the  past  is 
present  in  a  vicarious  or  representative  w^ay.  It  seems  to  me 
that  interpretation  bears  the  mark  of  this  type  of  time-trans- 
cendence. If  so,  it  must  be  noted  that  the  past,  as  such,  is  not 
directly  and  immediately  present  to  the  Interpreter.  The 
whole  as  the  direct  or  immediate  relation  of  the  Absolute  as 
Subject  to  the  World  as  Object  is  not  conceivable  under  this 
form  of  interpretation  which  we  find  in  the  finite.  Interpre- 
tation implies  a  time-process.  We  have  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  Royce  to  take  in  combination  two  phases  of  the  finite  which 
show  no  signs  of  uniting,  i.e.  direct  experience  and  all-inclu- 
siveness.  I  submit  that  in  sucli  ^synoptic  survey'  time  is  un- 
real. And  free  individuals  need,  for  the  reality  of  their  free- 
dom,  a  time  experience  which  is  also  real. 


20.  The   Problem   of    Christianity,    II,    p.    155. 

21.  The  Problem  of  Christianity,   II,   p.   280.      22.  Ibid.   II,   p.   271.      23.   Ibid.   II,   p. 
286.      24.  Ibid.  II.   61.      (Italics  are  mine). 


GG 


llvyte   and   liuhvldualluii 


Royvc   and   Iiidicidaaliun 


C 


IV, 


We  are  told  tliai  ••foreknowledge  iu  time  is  possible  only 
of  the  general,  and  of  the  catisally  predetermined,  and  not  ot 
the  unfque  and  free"  and  "hence  neither  God  nor  n.an  can 
perfectly  foreknow,  at  any  teniporal  moment,  what  a  free-wiU 
agent  is  yet  to  do.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Absolttte  possesse 
.?porfect^knowledge  at  one  glance  of  the  .hole  of  the  tempora 
order,  present,  past,  an<l  future.  This  knowledge  is  ill^allc-a 
foreknowledge.     It  is  eternal  knowledge.  ' 

The  anihiguitv  in  the  word  -eternal'  has  already  been  point- 
ed  ot.t  It  n.av' be  said  of  the  'foreknowledge  ot  the  causally 
predetermined' \hat  sueh  seems  to  moan  that,-given  the  or)g.- 
nal  cosmic  formula  and  assuming  the  conservation  of  energy 
and  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  ^]'«  °"^7;^. '^^,^.  "t^;" 
.sarv  result  which  one  may  deduce  or  predict.     But  >^ jh  e- 

knowledge  'eternal  knowledge'  ♦  It  is  the  assertion  of  univer 
sd  validitV  rather  than  that  direct  and  Immedmie  knowledge 
which  is  ascribed  to  the  Absolute.  Then  too  the  combmauon. 
of  atoms  and  molecules  vary  an.l  change  and  while  the  quan- 
tity mav  be  held  as  invariable,  the  arrangement  of  them  is  eve. 
new  an*d  so  they  have  a  real  future  that  it  seems  impossible  to 
foreknow,  i.e.  as  regards  order. 

The  ditticultv  is  even  greater  when  we  consider  the  soK^alled 
secondary  qualities.     The  order  and  arrangement  of  the  physi- 
cal, to  which  we  refer  primary  qualities,  is  ever  ctoj/m^.     ^> 
tlie  secondary  qualities,  we  see  that  which  the  individual  is  ev 
creailnn.^^     No  cosmic  fovnada  will  enable  one  to  predict  the 
moment  and  place  of  creation.     These  secondary  qualities  may 
,.ot  have  the  «ro..s  reality  that  physical  nature  possesses,  yet 
they  are  real.^  We  have  here  "a  process  of  absolute,  unpredic- 
table, and  inexplicable  creation  of  new  realities  out  of  not..- 
i„„.""       .lust  how  these  new  existences  arc    eternally    fore- 
kimwn  is  obscure.       I'rimary  qualities  may  be  known.       \U\ 


secondary  qualities  are  vinpreclictable.  The  arrangement  or 
order  of  the  reality  to  which  we  ascribe  primary  qualities  eyer 
presents  noyelties.  The  secondary  qualities  are  undoubtedly 
such.  Are  all  such  noyelties  real  or  illusory?  A  'completed 
experience'  would  render  them  illusory.  The  attempt  to 
tind  their  reality  in  an  'cternar  foreknowoledge  of  them 
leaves  the  point  very  obscure. 


V. 


The  term  'eternal',  if  used  tlius  in  relation  with  the  term 
'temporaF,  must  have  some  community  of  meaning.  The 
eternal  cannot  be  simply  'not  the  temporal'.'^  A  blank  negation 
of  the  temporal  is  an  irrelevant  negation. 

\Vlien  then  we  read,  that  ''as  there  is  an  eternal  knowledae 
of  all  individuality,  and  of  all  freedom,  free  acts  are  know^n 
as  occurring  like  the  chords  in  the  musical  succession,  ])recisely 
when  and  how  they  actually  occur."^'**  It  seems  natural  to 
suppose  that  the  term  'eternal'  has  some  functional  relation  to 
the  term  'temporal'.  But  the  'musical  succession'  is  only 
grasped  in  this  way  after  a  rehearsal  in  which  it  has  gone 
through  the  actual  stretch  of  time  of  playing.  Xow^  we  can 
hardly  think  that  the  present  time-order  is  a  second  rehearsal. 
The  illustration  from  nuisic  involves  a  necessity  of  havir.a 
heard  the  music  produced  at  least  once  before.  Even  in  the 
mind  of  the  composer,  however  rapidly  the  creation  takes  slmpe, 
it  takes  actual  time.  Afterwards  he  may  hold  it  in  an  all-in- 
one-instant  manner.  It  is  not  clear  then  what  it  is  to  have 
'eternal'  foreknowledge  of  a  -first  production.  Time  and  eter- 
nity are  not  made  commensurable  by  the  juxtapixsition  of  the 
terms. 

The  eternal  consciousness  is  in  some  sense  to  be  ahout  ^ojii- 
poral  and  changing  objects  and  further  is  to  include  and  indi- 
viduate consciousnesses  that  work  in  a  time-order  and  throuah 
successive  experiences.  I  have  shown  two  forms  of  time-trans- 
cendence in  finite  individuals.  In  the  form  of  a  time-span  or 
in  the  vicarious  or  representative  form^^  in  wdiich  our  past  ex- 


25.    The    World    and    the    Individu.l     II.    J;  j;*;,.,^,:,  Jen^ld^nd^  tL 

Ends"  p.  313.  hold,  that  Royce  here  d^nrnsh^  ^G^d  cannot  foreknow  but  th. 

26    See  "The  Problem  of  Knowledge"  I>.  C.   Macintosh,  pp.  314.  323.      Color.... 

the  created  product  ot  fplrit."                               ,,„nnx  dso  \    naner    on    "the 

27.    A.    O.    Lovejoy.    The    Philosophical    Review    (1900)    p.  489  A    paper 

obsolosconcp    of    tho    Ftirnal. 


28.  "The  Conception  of  God",  p.  348.  "The  Eternal  Now  is  simply  not  the  temporal 
»^  resent." 

29.  "The  World  and  the  Individual','  II,  p.  374. 

30.  In  the  Philosophical  Review  (1902)  p.  405.  J.  Dewey  (reviewing  The  V/orld 
and  the  Individual,  vol.  II)  says  "Prof.  Royce  seems  to  have  two  minds  aboui, 
time  and  two  about  eternity.  On  the  one  side,  the  temperal  process  in  each  and 
every  phase  is  equally  fragmentary  and  finite.  The  eternal  is  simply  the  temporal 
process  taken  as  an  object  of  knowledge  all  at  once.     Here  there  is  no  organic  re- 


^g  Uojjcc    (fid    IitdivUlucdiun 

„erience  i.  present  ^virh  us,  the  nature  of  time  is  not  lost.      But 
Ef^'re  I  simply  not  yet  existent.     ^^^^^^^ 
in  the  se<-.>n(l  form  of  time  transoendeucc  that  the  tinite  De.ng 
;  hi  "or  ase  of  knowledge  of  reality  is  not  ganung  an  ever 
^ider     n.l  wider  direct  and  immediale  experience  of  reality 
T^  time-span  transcendence  is  ever  Hunted  "V^efinUe.    Suc- 
cession a  J  enters  both  forms  of  tn--t-nBcende.ce.^^^^    -^^^^^^^ 
no  tendency  in  any  way  to  change  its  nature  to  simultaneity 
It  is  a  niti  e  of  the  tinic-order.     Now  in  the  senses  mentioned 
I  can  li  1  out  objects  and  events  in  the  time-order.     It  seems 
PCS  rJrto  postulate  a  consciousness  of  time-span  so  exter.de 
S:;;  all  theV  is  Presentin  an  ^....^^^  ^^Z^:^ 
r  i;  t tSft^rg^ie  f!^r  TiL  is  not  to  mere- 
;  r^Lend  time  but  to  ignore  it.  and  to  be  separate  absolutely 
from  it.     Time  and  such  eternity  are  incommensurable. 

VT. 

This  absolute,  Jfoyce  holds,  has  individuated  finite  inclivi- 
duals      The  Whde  i;  a  "completed  experience"  in  an  eternal 
n^ant.     iL  these  'parts'  pursue  a  temporal  e-tenc..Ea^ 
part  is  temporally  ever  fragmentary  an.l  >mpe'-fe<^  •       ^  ?^  the 
nature  and  reality  of  these  parts  are  necessary  to  the  complete 
Te^    :f  the  whole.     This  Eternal  is  then  in  relation  to  much 
that  changes.     Yet  it  loses  not  Us  eterni  y.       It  -  «^  -J^ 
fulfilled  and  complete.     How  is  it  possible  that  a  relation  De 
ticen  the  eternal  and  the  temporal  can  be  unchangeable  w^iei 
one  term  in  the  relation  is  one  of  changed     1  cannot  find  t^t 
Prol  I'yce  makes  this  clear  and  to  me  it  seems  self-contradic- 

tory. 

The  difficulty  is  no.  rendered  less  so  when  -' tuul  .lj.|.  -1- 

1  <.    Q„u  ^f  tViP  finite  beinir  is  this  Absolute  belt  wuicu  i» 
complete  Self  of  the  finite  bein    i  ,  ^      ^^  ^f 

the  Eternal.     One  might  ask  with  Sidgw  ick        i  a 

the  unity  of  the  individual's  consciousness  when  it  is  thus  sp-i 

up  hitoL  eternally  complete  consciousness  out  of  time  and  a 

^»hip  between  e.erni..  ^nd  ^'^^:^:i'tZ^^:^J^^ ^^^^ 
U  that  the  meaning  of  the  «h°'«  '^^^^^Ve' c.  has  an  eternal  meaning,  becans. 
r^X"mta.rin  its  r  r;^C;c?rh:  meaning  0.  an  o.he...  being  l.n.e. 
to  them  in  the  Absolute.  ' 


Iioijce    and   Indlci  dual  ion 


09 


function  of  an  animal  organism  which  this  eternal  mind,  somo- 
liow  limiting  itself,  makes  its  vehicle. "^^ 

It  seems  but  just  to  demand,  that,  when  one  starts  froju 
finite  experience  which  is  in  a  real  sense  a  temporal  experience^ 
and  passes  to  an  eternal  experience  one  must  make  the  steps 
such  that  others  may  see  the  way.  If  this  is  not  done  the  pas- 
sage in  question  will  seem  mystical  or  even  verbal.  Until  time 
and  eternity  are  shown  as  commensurable  we  are  condemned 
by  our  thinking  as  l)eings  in  time  to  hold  that  time  at  least  is 
real  and  knowable  by  us.  If  time  and  eternity  are  incommen- 
surable, it  seems  but  words  to  say  that  an  eter'nal  being  has 
relations  to  a  temporal  one.  If  the  Eternal  Being  needs  in 
any  sense  the  endeavors  that  appear  in  time  in  the  careers  of 
empirical  egos,  then  the  eternal  being  is  not  out  of  time.  To 
assert  a  real  relation  between  the  eternal  and  the  temporal  re- 
duces the  eternal  to  the  temporal. 

We  may  challenge  tlie  right  of  Prof.  Royce  to  say,  before 
he  has  made  clear  this  relation  of  the  temporal  and  the  eternal, 
''Our  comfort  lies  in  knowing  in  all  this  life,  ideals  are  sought, 
with  incompleteness  and  with  sorrow,  but  with  the  assurance 
of  the  divine  triumph  in  Eternity  lighting  up  the  wliole.'' '" 


VTL 


While  this  relation  of  the  ti'mj)<>ral  and  the  etenuil  remains 
obscure,  it  seems  impossible  to  hold  that  the  Absolute  has  been 
proven  to  exist.  Ilence  one  ca'nnot  say  that  the  problem  of  the 
principle  of  individuation  has  been  cleared  up.  And  if  the 
logical  relation  of  the  Absolute  to  the  finite  is  not  indubitalde 
we  cannot  begin  from  that  larger  side  in  our  explanation  of 
the  lesser.     We  cannot,  that  is,  approach  the  finite  self  from 


31.  As  quoted  by  A.  0.  Lovejoy  in  Phil.  Rev.  1909,  p.  403,  from  Sidgwick's  "Lectures 

on  the  Ethics  of  Green,   Spencer  and  Martineau."    (1902)    Ch.   I. 

32.  The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  p.  411,  (Italics  are  mine).  The  Problem  of 
the  presence  of  evil  in  a  perfect  universe  is  obscure  in  the  same  way  as  is  the 
question  of  the  relation  of  time  and  eternity.  For  Royce  there  is  eternally  present 
in  the  Absolute,  the  evil  and  the  good  will  which  annuls  it.  But,  in  the  finite, 
there  is,  in  the  time-process,  the  suffering  of  suspense  and  of  the  soitows  un- 
solved. Just  how  the  Absolute,  in  its  eternal  and  simultaneous  consciousness  of 
the  evil  and  triumph  over  it,  could  have  the  grief  of  despair  and  hope,  deferred, 
seems  hard  to  understand.  While  the  meaning  of  the  term  eternal  is  obscure  one 
does  not  know  whether  in  an  'eternal  consciousness'  the  evil  and  its  sting  is 
present  at  one  and  at  the  same  time  with  the  triumph.  If  they  are  simultaneous, 
it  would  seem   as  a   'painting  of  a   sorrow'. 


\ 


70 


liuyce   and  Indicidualion, 


the  si<le  of  tl..'  wholeness,  a  wovl.l-view  which  wo  have  readied 
in  thought  by  mere  contrast,  not  by  logic. 

I  sav  rontrast.     I  find  in  my  cognition  two  phases.     There 
is  that  form  found  in  direct  and  immediate  experience.     There 
thought  is  working  with  original  sensations  and  peroeptioi-.s. 
It  is  conscious  of  them  as  new  and  as  marking  present  exper- 
ience     But  the  present  moves  across  the  narrow  time-span  ot 
my  direct  consciousness  and  becomes  past.     The  actual  stretch 
of  time  is  eliminated.     In  memory,  image  or  kmcsthesis,  the 
past  remains  on   in  the  present.        Thonglit  may  work  over 
these  memories.     In  doing  so  it  has  full  recognition  ot  such  as 
past,  and  that,  in  whatever  sense  they  remain,  they  are  the 
equivalents  or  representations  of  past  experiences.     Ihe  refer- 
ence is  not  lost.     Now  in  my  experience  it  is  this  knotvledcie 
of  what  is  past  which  grows.     It  is  present  with  me  but  not 
liowever  as  direct  experience.       It  is  a  knowledge  of  reality. 
The  direct  experience  with  its  narrow  time-span  may  widen  a 
little.     15ut  its  signiticance  does  not  lie  in  any  evident  tendency 
to  c'l'ow'  ever  wider  and  v.ider. 

Now  the  Al)s<dute  as  described  is  a  whole  and  is  a  direct 
experience.  The  logic  of  my  finite  experience  is  an  ever  widen- 
ing knoidedge  of  reality  together  with  a  non-expansive  time- 
span  Yet  it  is  this  latter  as  expanded  infinitely  which  is 
aseribe.1  to  the  Absolute.  This  is  not  the  logic  of  finite  ex- 
perience but  a  straight  contrast  based  on  the  co7icre!eness  ot 
mv  direct  or  immediate  experience.  But  if  it  is  a  contrast, 
we  must  see  that  it  remains  still  in  the  region  of  the  formal  or 
eoiicoptual. 

On  the  other  han.l  there  is  logi.-  in  the  view  of  a  coinpre- 
hensive  unity  of  knowledge.  It  is  the  unity  in  the  individual 
knowers  thought  and  life  manifests  an  ever  widening  reduc- 
tion of  his  experiences  of  reality  to  this  knowledge  form.  W  e 
have  thus  the  experiencing  mind  and  its  accumulated  knowledge 

of  veal  it  V. 

We  iiave  then  to  look  for  the  principle  of  individuation 
not  to  some  all-inclusive  Absolute,  but  to  the  nature  of  the  m- 

„3    K»„t  in  a  letter  to  M.m.8   Herj   in   1780  write,  "that  we  c.nnot  «»»»■"■■'*_« 
oo.   iv.ftm    lu   u   iKnt^i    I."  oamo   ftR   thp   divme.   and   only   aistin- 

TsoraVnuoted  by  A.   S.th  in  Hejrelianism  nnd  Personality,   p.  33,   note.) 


Boycc    and  Indn-iduatlon  71 

dividual  in  himself.  We  find  a  certain  instinct  for  reality  or 
will  to  live  in  all  levels  of  human  life.  Some  unifying  and 
directive  value-seeking  impulse  is  in  even  the  pre-self-conscious 
stages  of  life.  One  might  postulate  some  sort  of  absolute  and 
personal  value  that  unifies  the  special  instincts  and  necessary 
desires.  Nietzsche  has  called  it  the  Svill  to  power'.  If  powder 
is  read  in  its  higher  meanings,  this  mav  not  be  too  vague  a 
title. 

And  now  it  will  not  do  to  select  some  high  level  or  phase 
of  individual  life  and  explain  the  lower  by  it.  To  speak  of 
rational  self-activity"^*  as  the  mark  of  the  true  self  is  to  do 
less  than  justice  to  the  pre-rational  and  instinctive  levels  of  life. 
We  find  too  on  a  high  level  of  huma'n  life  activities  which  are 
carried  on  in  habitual  forms  where  reasoning  or  reflection  is 
not  explicit.  There  is  also  the  intuition  that  succeeds  reflec- 
tion. 

The  Absolutist  tends  to  define  the  individual  in  terms  of 
content  or  relations.  This  enables  him  to  think  of  the  content 
in  a  large  way.  It"  is  freed  from  the  limitations  of  time  nnd 
space,  from  the  peculiarities  of  individuals.  Of  course  he 
refers  to  actual  or  concrete  life.  I>ut  because  we  must  speak 
of  reality  in  the  words  and  terms  of  wdiat  is  intellectual,  there 
is  always  the  danger  of  mistaking  this  intellectual  content, 
as  abstracted  from  time,  these  relations,  etc.,  for  actually  exict- 
ing  selves.  Xow  if  I  would  define  a  man  I  can  say, — the  name 
he  has  is,  etc., — he  lives  at,  etc., — he  has  a  certain  business, 
etc.  But  I  can  not  say  that  when  I  have  exhausted  the  re- 
lations and  activities  or  content  of  his  life  I  have  given  the 
individual.  I  have  assumed  him  in  every  concrete  situation. 
I  have  described  him  but  I  have  not  constituted  him  as  exis- 
tent. The  existent  individual  is  treated  bv  the  Absolutist 
according  to  the  needs  of  his  argument.  To  maintain  hi.s 
actuality,  the  individual  is  spoken  of  as  many  concrete  rela- 
tions held  in  unity  by  some  unifying  principle.  Then,  to 
provide  for  that  self-transcendence  which  is  the  indication  o.^* 
the  great  and  inclusive  Absolute  disjunctively  embodied  in  the 
many  individuals,  we  have  this  unifying  principle  suddenly 
growing  more  tangible  and  the  various  relations  growing  less 

34.  This  is  the  term  pi-eferred  by  Prof.  Howison  (See  The  Conception  of  God,  p.  321 
note).  It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  take  into  account  the  significance  in  life  of 
instincts   and   desires. 


I- 


72 


Iluycc   aiLcl   Indlcldualioiv 


liojjce   and   Individual  ion 


■7'> 


SO.     This  seems  to  me  an  hypostasising  of  the  formal  and  uni- 
fying prinei])le. 

Ikit  we  hold  that  the  Absolute  has  not  been  demonstrated. 
Can  we  not  deny  to  thought  its  chaim  to  finding  in  its  timeless 
abstractions  the^ essence  of  individuality?  Thought  is  rather 
a  function  of  the  whole  life-process  than  an  end  in  itself. 

If  we  go  to  the  facts  of  life  for  our  data,  we  can-not  igMore 
the  psychcdoijical  elements  for  there  can  be  no  content  without 
ixsychologicai    embodiment.       Every     psychological    existence 
takes  place  at  a  specific  time  in  the  stream  of  experience.     Here 
in  this  concrete,  one  must  look  for  the  individual  and,  for  psy- 
chological theory,  the  original  datum  is  the  orga'uism  already 
struggling  to  maintain  and  develop  itself.       It  is  from  this 
that^'the  life  of  conscious  experienc-e  is  slowly  differentiated. 
We  can  sav  that  ^Hhere  are  many  centres  of  conscious  exper- 
ience, each' leading  its  own  life,  determined  by  its  own  ideals, 
yet  making  itself  eifective  in  a  common  order  of  expeneace, 
and  doing  this  by  building  up  jointly  with  other  intelligent 
agents  a  common  world  oi  ever  increasiiu;  richness  and  com- 
i)lexitv.''""     Here  v;e  are  not   among  rarelled   abstractions   or 
timeless  content.       ^^The  only  true  and  real  and  independent 
existences   are   minds   together  with   that   which   they   appre- 
hend.'''*'       The   relational  content  found   by   the   analysis   of 
knowledoe  is  of  a  merely  logical  character  and  we  must  n(»t 
mistake  the  logical  exposition  of  thought  in  general  for  a  mcta- 
])hysieal  determination  of  the  object. 

As  we  have  already  noted,  language  is  the  work  of  thought 
and  hence  all  that  is  expressed  in  language  must  be  u'niversal. 
But  shall  vv-e  say  that  what  cannot  be  uttered,  feeling  and  ^en- 
sation,  etc.,  far  from  being  the  highest  truth,  is  the  most  un- 
important or  untrue?  This  is  what  I  mean  when  I  define  a 
man  in  terms  of  the  content  of  his  life.  I  cannot  mean  that 
the  business,  pleasure,  home,  etc.,  which  make  up  the  actual 
content  of  his  lifo  are  to  be  included  literally.  I  have  abstracr- 
ed  their  essence.       They  are  relations.       But  such  reasoning 

needs  to  know  that  "the  real  is  inaccessible  by  way  of  ideas 

We  escape  from  ideas  and  from  mere  universals,  by  a  reference 
to  the  real  which  appears  in  perception."^'     A  mere  glance  at 


i 


I 


nature  suffices  to  ;show^  that  its  leading  feature,  as  contrasted 
with  the  logical  necessity  which  links  the  different  parts  of  a 
rational  system  together,  is  its  pure  matter-of-factness.  This 
is  not  irrational.  It  is  rather  a  non-rational  or  alocjical  char- 
acter. Things  lie  side  by  side  in  space  or  succeed  one  another 
in  time  with  perfect  indifference.  Of  real  existence  one  must 
say  "the  parts  seem  to  be  shot  out  of  a  pistol  at  us.  Each  asserts 
itself  as  a  simple  brute  fact,  uncalled  for  by  the  rest,  which, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  might  even  make  a  better  systc'in  v/Idiout 
it.  Arbitrary,  jolting,  foreign,  discontinuous,  are  the  adjec- 
tiv'es  by  which  we  are  tempted  to  describe  it.""*^  I'he  Abso- 
lutist w^ould  acknowledge  these  concrete  facts,  w^ould  term  them 
the  Contingent  and  pass  by  v/ay  of  contrast  to  the  limeless  and 
logical  abstractions  which  he  then  liypostasiscs  into  an  Absolute 
Self  Consciousness.  ]^ow  logical  abstractions  can  not  iJilcfcen 
into  real  existences.  The  men'nest  thing  that  exists  has  a  life 
of  its  own,  absolutely  unique  and  individual  which  we  can 
partly  understand  by  terms  borrowed  from  our  own  experiences, 
but  which  is  no  more  identical  v.ith  or  in  anv  w-ay  like  the 
description  v/e  give  of  it,  than  our  own  inner  life  is  identical 
with  the  description  we  give  it  in  a  book  of  philosophy.  We 
must  not  sweep  existential  reality  off  the  board,  under  the 
])ersuasion  that  a  full  statement  of  all  the  thought-relation^ 
that  constitute  our  knowledge  of  the  thing  is  equivalent  to  the 
existent  thing.  It  is  our  thought-equivalent.  But  something 
has  escaped  the  logical  net.  And  that  something  is  very  im- 
portant. 

It  is  submitted  that  Royee,  in  common  with  till  Al)s<d'itists, 
seeks  to  evolve  a  fact  from  a  conception."^  Even  in  the  latest 
book  there  is  a  very  evident  endeavor  to  make  synonymous  an 
Absolute  as  Interpretation  with  a  Divine  Community  of  Inter- 
preters. This  latter  seems  no  abstraction.  The  former  is 
such.  If  w^e  conclude  to  ignore  this  continued  insistence  on 
an  Absolute  and  accept  as  an  aJiernaiive  the  Community  we 


33    C     M.   Bftkowell.      The   Philosophical   Review.   toI.   XX.   p.    134. 

36.*  Ferrier    (Institutes)    as  quoted  by  A.   Seth,   Hegehanism  and  Personality,   p.   31. 

37.  F.  H.  Bradley.     Principles  of  T-.ogio,   63,  69. 


88.    Wm.   James.      Mind,    Vll,    187. 

39.  A.  C.  Armstrong  in  a  review  of  The  Problem  of  Christiauity  in  The  Philosophical 
Review  (1914)  p.  71  f-  asks  "Does  the  noetic  ground  compel  the  inference  to  the 
metaphysical   conclusion?" 

In    The   Religious   Aspect   of  Philosophy,    p.    476,    Royce   tells   us   "Our   special   proof 
for  the  existence  of  an   Universal   Thought  has  been  based,    in  the  foregoing,   upon 

an  analysis  of  the  nature  of  truth   and   error  as  necessary   conceptions The 

Universal    Thought    is    infinite,    and   its   existence    is   proved   independently    of    ex- 
perience."     (Bhuk  type  mine). 

John  Dewey  in  The  Philosophical  Review,    1902,   p.   406,   saj's  "Prof.  Royce  dives 
arbitrari'y  from  tho  regrinn  of  concepts  into  the  chaotic  sea  of  experience." 


7^ 


lioyce    and   Individual  ion 


have  retained  in  our  construction,  along  with  our  logic  of  re- 
lations, the  alogical  facts  of  real  existences. 

The  idea  of  reality  as  substance,  as  substantial,  is  very 
tenacious  of  life.  This  stubbornness  points  to  this  that  reality 
can  never  be  wholly  permeable  to  idea,  and  yet  we  do  know 
realitv.        Keality  is  something  beyond  categories  and  predi- 


cates. 


VIII 


The  Absolutist  would  detine  iinitc  individuality  i'n  terms  of 
contents  and  contents,  to  be  described,  nuist  be  stated  in  iatel- 
lectual  terms.  They  are,  to  that  extent,  abstractions.  While 
having  a  tj\^e  of  existence,  they  are  descriptions  of  reality 
rather  than  the  actual  things  described.  These  intellectual 
constructions  can  be  easily  merged  by  the  intellect  which  made 
them.  Ilense  compoundini^  of  consciousnesses  seems  a  fact  oi* 
at  least  a  possibility.  But  this  is  solely  in  the  realm  of  the 
conceptual.  Existences  do  not  flow  together.  The  transition 
from  the  ideal  to  the  actual  is  the  tratisition*"*  which  is  not  clear. 

Finite  fact  does  not  give  us  much  light  on  this  point.  E.^- 
perience  presents  to  us  two  features  as  we  have  noted.  The.e 
is  a  present  time-span  and  an  ever  increasing  knowledge  of 
reality.  When  I  remember  a  scene  or  a'n  individual,  the  actual 
and  original  experience  is  not  present.  Some  copy  or  symbol 
of  it  is  there.  The  significant  thing  about  this  symbol  is  its 
reference  to  that  original  but  now  past  experience.  To  say 
that  if  I  can  compare  the  copy  with  the  original  that  I  have 
the  original  and  hence  do  not  need  the  copy,  is  no  argument. 
A  fresh  view  of  a  scene  always  renews  the  representation  which 
I  bear  away  and  the  reference  to  that  scene  is  the  significant 
feature  of  it.  This  reference  does  not  arise  through  compari- 
son of  the  copy  and  the  original.  Tt  is  a  constant  feature  of 
the  symbol  and  hence  niav  be  assumed. 

We  have  much  knowledge  that  cannot  be  said  to  have  come 
into  my  experience  even  directly.  A  friend  describes  vividly 
the  inside  form  of  his  house.   '  I  get  a  picture  of  it  which  would 


40  J  Dewey  in  The  Philosophical  Review,  1902.  p.  398.  says,  "In  any  case  it  I8 
"  not  clear  what  justifies  Prof.  Royce  suddenly  to  turn  his  back  upon  ideal  con 
Ktructions  and  fall  back  upon  literal  experiences,— seeing  that  his  whole  theory 
of  Being  is  based  upon  discounting  literal  experiences  as  fragmentary,  mere^  nints. 
glimpses,  etc..  in  favour  of  what,  for  our  type  of  consciousness,  must  be,  and  must 
remain,   a  wholly  ideal  construction." 


lloijcc    and    Indii'idualion 


i  J 


enable  me  to  go  about  it  in  the  dark.  And  1  have  not  seen  it 
as  yet.  I  have  a  knowledge  of  that  house  which  lias  not  en- 
tered my  immediate  experience.  In  my  knowledge  of  reality 
I  have  then  some  equivalent  or  representation  of  reality,  not 
realitv  itself. 


But  when  I  examine  further  my  direct  experience  1  do  not 
find  that  sort  of  inclusive  unity  which  is  ascribed  to  the  Abso- 
lute. When  I  experience  a  house  across  the  street,  psychology 
tells  me  of  certain  vibrations  of  the  ether  or  other  medium  that 
fall  upon  the  retina  of  my  eye.  The  result  is  a  group  of  sen- 
sations in  my  mind.  Surely  that  which  is  concretely  within 
my  mind  is  the  sensation.  The  house  is  out  there  beyond  my 
eye.  Of  course  this  seems  to  ptit  the  mind,  w^e  are  told,  back 
in  the  skull.  Whatever  the  answer  may  be  to  that  charge  it 
seems  as  if  an  attack  on  the  skull  has  more  immediate  eU'jct 
on  the  mind  than  the  tearing  down  of  the  house.  My  dire<'-t 
exj)erience  of  an  object  in  the  physical  world  is  not  a  case  of 
my  mind  expanding  to  include  it  literally.  Such  elasticity 
would  call  for  explanation.  And  such  an  expansion  ignores 
the  facts  of  vision. 

The  contention  is  made  here  that  in  both  my  direct  or 
present  and  my  past  exjxirience  we  have  no  concrete  union 
such  as  is  ascribed  to  Thought,  or  Will.  We  have  to  distin- 
guish two  sorts  of  objects.  There  is  the  house  across  the  street, 
the  shape  and  color  of  which  I  become  aware  of  at  a  glance. 
This  is  the  actual  physical  object.  Such  objects  make  impress 
sions  on  us  through  our  senses.  Or  we  get  a  knowledge  of 
them  through  such  media.  We  have  further  the  object^^  of 
knowledge.  This  latter  is  that  which  holds  over  and  become^ 
my  memory  of  the  house.  As  stated,  it  exists  with  a  specific 
reference  to  the  actual  physical  object.  Or,  if  in  my  direct 
experience  I  abstract  from  the  experience  my  consciousness  of 
mental  activity,  the  mental  content  remaining  is  this  object. 
The  sense  of  vision  is  acted  upon  and  I  have  a  sensation.  This 
is  what  I  really  experience.  I  am  on  both  sides  of  this  relation 
of  knower  and  object.  But  the  object  is  this  mental  content. 
This  object  has,  as  noted,  the  reference  outward.     In  the  k?io\v- 


41,  On  this  distinction  see  A.  K.  Rogers  in  The  Journal  of  Phil.  Psy.  and  Sc.  M., 
March  30,  1916,  on  "A  Statement  of  Epistemological  Dualism.'  He  distinguishen 
"between  the  content  of  knowledge,  the  object  of  knowledge,  and  the  psychological 
existence  of  the  knowledge  act."  The  'content'  of  knowledge  is  "not  only  abstract 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  unlocalizod  in  space;   it  is  unlocalized  also  in  time."' 


76 


lloycc   aud   Indlculaation 


lloijce    and.    IndlcldiuiUon 


i  i 


ing  relation  of  direct  experience  there  is  no  such  concrete 
union  of  the  knower  and  the  actual  physical  object  such  as 
1  ascribed  to  the  All-Knower.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  ex- 
perience which  is  certainly  not  actually  withrn  my  mind  in 
knowing.  If  I  hold  a  ball  in  my  hand  I  am  unable  to  see  the 
f  I  rt her  side.  Yet  I  do  not  seem  to  have  any  psychological 
evidence  for  believing  that  the  side  visible  to  me  is  concretely 
present  in  a  way  the  other  is  not.  My  k»nowing  is  of  the  ball 
and  the  farther"  side  seems  to  be  in  the  same  sense  over  there 
as  well  as  the  side  next  to  me.  I  am  thinking  about  the  two 
sides  of  the  ball.  The  content  or  object  in  knowledge  which  1 
get  in  the  sensation  of  the  ball  is  such  that  I  add  rn  imaginative 
presentation  the  other  side.  In  thought  the  ball  is  complete 
though  I  have  experienced  directly  but  one  side. 

What  I  wish  to  submit  here  is  that  any  reading  of  a  knowing 
experience  in  terms  of  an  actual,  bodily  presence,  i'n  the  unity 
of  my  experience,  of  the  physical  object,  seems  untrue  to  the 
facts  of  knowing  which  psychology  presents  to  us.  Neither  in 
my  direct  experience  nor  in  that  form  in  which  experience 
wiiich  is  past  is  found  i'n  me  is  there  such  physical  presence. 
My  thought,  experience,  meaning,  will,  or  interpretation  all 
alike  lack  this  which  is  ascribed  to  the  Absolute.  An  analogy 
in  finite  experience,  being  absent,  such  experience  of  concrete 
unio^i  is  unmeaning  to  us. 


realm  is  freighted  with  all  the  obscurities  of  *the  distinction 
and  yet  relation'  of  the  temporal  and  the  eternal. 

The  attempt  further  to  gain  an  ultimate  and  all-inclusive 
unitv  is  ambiicnous.  The  unitv  of  a  familv,  a  state  or  a  cro^^d 
is  assumed.  The  mind  of  a  state  is  found  only  in  the  indivi- 
dual citizens.  The  genius  of  democracy  is  not  unification  but 
harmonious  differentiation. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  tliat  the  Absolutist  reads  experience  in 
terms  of  direct  union  with  the  actual  objects.  These  actual 
unities  are  then  rarefied  by  translation  from  the  temporal  to 
the  eternal  realm.  We  have  timeless  content  and  relations. 
Such  easily  flow  together  and  we  have  the  Absolute — a  direct 
union  of  a  self  with  all  objects — a  concrete  self — consciousness. 

Now  'no  such  union  is  even  hinted  at  in  finite  consciousness 
and  aU-inclusivencss,  as  shown,  is  not  an  ideal  for  the  time- 
span  of  my  direct  experience,  but  of  my  knowledge  of  reality 
which  is  intellectual  or  in  some  sense  representational. 


IX. 


In  the  Hrst  two  periods  of  his  work,  Koycc  is  dealing  with 
the  rehuion  of  a  finite  being  to  the  infinite.  I  have  contended 
that  the  larger  self  which  has  been  attained  by  contrast  is  not 
an  all-inclusive  Absolute  but  the  fi'nite  self*'  envisaged  in  con- 
ceptual completeness.  In  the  later  period  the  relation  with 
which  the  period  opens  is  the  relation  of  men  to  one  another 
in  society.  Royce  reads  the  self  as  in  reality  the  Self,  and  so 
here  'men  in  society'  is  read  as,  in  reality,  'Community.'  We 
have  here,  I  contend,  no  logical  and  existential  fact  but  society 
as  we  know  it  envisaged  in  conceptual  completeness.  It  is 
an  ideal  construction.  To  tra'iislate  the  social  world  as  wo 
know  it  from  the  actual  time-process  into  some  super-temporal 

42.  See  W.   E.   Hocking.   "The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human   Experience,"  p.   290.   Also 
G.   H.  Howison.   "The  Comeption  of  God,"   p.    104. 


78  lloyce    and   Indlvklaallon 

CHAPTER  X. 


Sclf-A  lie  nation. 


I 


111  the  philorioplij  of  Prof.  Koyce  we  must  not  forget  that 
finite  selves  are  not  objects  of  the  thought  of  the  Absolute. 
They  are  constituent  elements  of  the  Infinite  as  Subject.  They 
participate  in  the  essential  nature  of  the  whole.,  lioyee  re- 
peatedly refers  to  them  thus  as  'parts'  or  'fragment.s'  of  the 
whole.  As  'parts',  the  many  have  a  measure  of  separateness 
or  of  independence  of  each  other.  But  they  "freely  unite  to 
constitute  tlie  whole."^  "When  we  urge  or  seek  independence 
of  character,  we  must  do  so  only  l)ecause  such  independence 
is  a  temporary  means,  whose  ultimate  aim  is  harmony  and 
unity  of  all  men  on  a  higher  plane,"^  for  "the  One  Will  must 
conquer."^  If  one  inquires  of  origin  rather  than  goal,  one  is 
tokl,  "the  Will  individuates  according  to  its  own  needs;  and 
and  if  it  needs  for  its  fulfilment  free  individuals  it  will  possess 
them  and  its  life  will  be  constituted  by  theirs.'-*  Such  in- 
dividuation is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  embodiment  in  ob- 
jects of  the  thought  of  the  Absolute. 

As  co'n^tituents  parts  of  the  whole,  the  career  for  each  is  to 
serve**  the  cause  of  the  whole.  "Tlie  free  agents  of  a  moral 
world  are  free  only  in  so  far  as  their  essential  moral  relations 
ideally  leave  them  free.  They  have  their  place  and  must  stay 
in  it.  They  have  their  individuality  and  must  subordinate 
it.''®  This  nccessitv  of  'subordination'  is  characteristic  of 
Royce's  ethical  theory  in  each  period.  While  admitting  that 
possibly  no  philosopher  has  worked  out  so  fully  this  necessary 
side  of  a  true  life,  the  criticism  is  offered  that  the  position  is 
one-sided  and  as  such  is  abstract.  'Loyalty  to  loyalty'  is  a 
merely  formal  principle." 


6. 

7. 


The  Conception  of  God.  p.   270. 

The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  216.      3,  Ibid.  p..  217.      4.  The  Conception 

of  God,   p.   271. 

This  subordination  of  the  individual  has  already  been  traced  to  the  necessity,  in  a 

'finished'  world  where  even  novelties  would  be  impossible,   of  the  part  seeking  to 

'appear'  like  reality.      The  part  would  thus  seek  to  will  the  Universal  Will. 

The  Conception  of  God,   p.   321. 

Royce,   like  Kant,    sets  tip  an   absolute  principle  of   duty,    so   formal   and   spectral, 

that   it   cannot   be  said   to   c  <mraand   anything   in   particular. 


Royce 


a  I'd 


liidiciiliudion 


79 


Itoyce  has  a  way  of  drawing  out  a  contrast'^  between  tlie  in- 
dividual per  se  and  objective  human  experience  to  the  great 
discrediting  of  the  former.  It  would  seem  as  if  he  seeks  to 
demonstrate  the  latter  bv  the  discrcditino^  of  the  former.^  lie 
identifies  the  individual  with  the  private,  and  the  private  with 
the  merely  private  and  this  with  the  absolutely  exclusive  and 
isolated. ^°  This  prepares  the  way  for  a  declaration  that  this 
isolated,  private  will  must  be  subordinated  to  the  Universal 
Will.  The  criticism  is  offered  here  that  if  the  contrast  is  to 
be  thus  exaggerated  to  make  the  center  of  initiation  the  will 
an  empty  assertion,  then  the  other  side  in  the  contrast,  ho\vever 
rich  in  content,  becomes  a  choMs  without  the  cause-producing 
initiative  of  the  will.      The  contrast  shows  a  nece?vsarv  relation 

c 

and  one  which  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  a  pair  of  alternaUves 
from  which  to  choose.  It  is  submitted  that  "the  self -regarding 
sentiment  is  the  verv  heart  and  kernel  of  our  volition  and 
hence  of  our  moral  efforts."^^  This  self-regarding  sentiment 
is  not  to  be  construed  in  terms  of  callous  disregard  of  others. 
To  escape  from  selfishness  one  need  not  be  unsclfed.  "When 
Aristotle  says  that  man  is  l)y  nature  a  political  animal  he  means, 
of  course,  that  the  individual  is  bv  nature  such  as  to  find  his 
chief  good  in  association  with  other  men  ;  but  he  is  very  far 
from  meaning  that  the  individual  locates  his  chief  good  in  the 
good  of  others,  or  that  his  attitude  is  in  any  sense  disinterest- 
ed.". .  .  .  "Xor  is  the  grocer  in  business  for  his  health,  or  for 
mine.  It  is  indeed  true  tlien,  that  the  good  of  the  individual 
is  to  be  found  in  social  life;  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  he  is 
in  sopietv  for  individual  ends.''^^ 


8.  Martiueau  (A  Study  of  Religion,  2nd  Ed.,  Vol.  1,  p.  205)  SHys  of  Royce.  "So 
long  as  the  author  is  engaged  in  contrasting  this  consciousness  that  'other  life  is 
as  my  life'  with  the  individualism'  of  the  hedonist,  of  the  sentimental  cultivator 
of  his  own  'beautiful  soul',  or  of  the  defiant  Titan  towards  all  that  resists  his 
fixed  intent,  he  easily  persuades  us  that  it  has  the  advantage  over  them  of  'in- 
sight' over  partial  blindness." 

9.  In  the  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  No.  1.  Hy  Jones,  (reviewing  The  World  and  the 
Individual')  says  that  Royce,  regarding  the  first  three  theories  of  Being  as  the 
only  possible  rivals  of  the  fourth  which  is  his  own,  and  noting  the  fourth's  sur- 
vival of  the  extinction  of  the  three,  assumes  that  therefore  it  is  true.  (Ser?  The 
World  and  the  Individual,    vol.    I.   p.    348  f.) 

10.  John  Dewey  in  the  Phil,  Rev.  XXI,  p.  72  (in  reviewing  '"Wm.  James  and  Other 
Essays")  charges  Royce  with  this  exaggeration  of  a  contrast,  in  order  to  intro- 
duce the  Absolute  as  a  necessity  in  order  that  the  gap  may  be  bridged. 

11.  J.  E.  Harrison  in  'Alpha  and  Omega'  p.  91. 

12.  W^amer   Kite.      Individualism,   pp.    U;8,    1C9. 


80 


lloijce    and    Induuluatioii 


IT. 


In  the  earliest  period,  this  self  alienation  is  very  evident. 
The  end  that  is  sought  is  imitication  of  all  life,  not  harmonious 
differentiation  of  excellence.     We  have  pictured  to  us  the  in- 
dividualism of  the  hedonist,  the  beautiful  soul,  the  Titan.     The 
unification  of  life  is  surely  l>etter  than  these.     The  one  alter- 
native discredited,  the  other  is  credited  with  worth.        ^'Ihe 
universal  will  of  the  moral  insight  must  aim  at  the  destruction, 
of  all  which  separates  us  into  a  heap  of  different  selves,  and  at 
the  attainment   of  some  higher  positive  organic   aim.        The 
'one  tmdivided  souF  we  are  bound  to  make  our  ideal.     And  tlie 
ideal  of  that  soul  cannot  be  the  separate  happiness  of  you  and 
of  me,  nor  the  negative  fact  of  our  freedom  from  hatred,  but 
must  be  something  above  up  all,  and  yet  very  positive."'^  Each 
must  thus  break  the  bounds  of  his  own  individuality.     All  the 
many  wills  are  to  have  equal  footing  or  rather  all  are  to  coal- 
esce in  one.     "Having  made  my  self,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  one 
with  all  the  conflicti'ng  wills  before  me,  I  must  act  out  the 
resulting  universal  will  as  it  then  arises  in  me.'^'*     There  re- 
«nlts  "an  organic  union  of  life."^*       Our  reUtions  to  other 
imnis  are  to  change  into  fusion  with  them.     The  "one  highc.u 

impersmial  work will  be  no  more  the  work  of  so  and  so 

many  separate  men,  but  it  will  be  the  work  of  man  as  num. 
And  the  separate  men  will  not  know  or  care  whether  they 
separately  are  happy."^«  "A  wholly  impersonal  devotion''  t) 
"the  impersonal  organization  of  life''  is  thus  the  true  life.  The 
impassioned  drama  of  personal  life  fades  away  as  we  try  to 
think  of  such  impersonal  de\t)tion.'  "Such  suppression  ot 
individuality  in  homage  to  an  imi)ersonal  social  organisia  is 
a  relapse  into  the  ruder  tribal  life,  out  of  which  personality 
is  evolved  as  the  higher  stage,  with  its  noble  characteristics  of 
inalienable  tnist  and  imperative  Duty.'"^ 

But  ^'we  are  instruments and  we  must  be  ready  to 

sacrifice  ourselves  to  the  whole"^«  for  "the  One  Will  must  con- 
quer."'°  It  must  because  it  already  is  victor.  "We  know 
onlvthat  the  highest  Truth  is  already  attained  from  all  eter- 


PiOljce    and   IndlciduaCion 


81 


13.   The   Religious   Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.    193.      14.   Ibid.   p.    172   f.      15.   Ibid.   p. 

194.      16.    Ibid.   p.    211    f. 
17    Martineau.      The  Study  of  ReliRion,   I,   p.   206. 
18.   The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.   215   f.      19.   Ibid.   p.    217.      20.   Ibul.   p. 

478. 


nity  in  the  Infinite  Thought,  and  that  in  and  for  that  Thought 
the  victor V  that  overcometh  the  world  is  once  for  all  won. 
Whatever  happens  to  our  poor  selves,  we  know  that  the  whole 
is  perfect."^^  It  is  this  comfort  that  is  with  us  even  though 
"we  know  nothing  of  individual  immortality." 

If  we  have  not  here  an  altruism  which  sinks  the  self  in  the 
service  of  others,  we  have  an  ideal  in  which  the  self  is  sunk  in 
the  impersonal  service  of  the  Universal  Will.  It  is  submitted 
that  such  unification  of  will  can  be  but  a  formal  principle  or 
will  to  have  such  a  will.  The  \wrld  is  too  big  and  complex 
to  get  such  a  will  in  detail.  But  it  is  submitted  further  that 
such  depersonalizing  of  oneself  cuts  off  life  from  the  very 
spring  of  all  initiative.  "Man  is  a  being,  whose  life  consists 
in  trying  to  attain  what  at  the  start  is  present  to  him  only 
as  a  demand,  ami  because  this  sense  of  himself  takes  the  fonn 
of  a  strong  claim  for  satiisf action,  the  emotional  accompanimen. 
of  this  claim,  the  feeling  a  man  has  for  his  right  to  satisfac- 
tion, has  to  be  recognized. ''^^  The  ultimate  test  of  this  ^Ilni- 
versal  WilF  can  be  given  only  in  terms  of  satisfactions  to  in- 
dividuals since  even  social  welfare  is  an  end  for  me  only  as  it 
is  my  end.  Even  if  we  accept  this  ideal  of  a  Universal  V7ill, 
it  is  a  fact  that  the  nearest  we  can  come  to  it  is  a  "mutual 
realization  of  wills."  It  seems  to  me  also  that  its  moral 
character  exists  only  so  long  as  this  mutual  life  does  not  merge 
or  retreat  into  a  unity.-" 

This  subordination  of  selfh(X)d  is  the  story  also  in  The 
Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy'.  "It  is  just  endurance  that  is 
the  essence  of  spirituality.  Eesignation  is  part  of  the  truth. — 
resignation  of  any  hope  of  a  final  and  private  happiness."^^ 
But  in  our  finitude  we  have  one  'comfort*  for  "if  w^e  have  the 
true  insight  of  deeper  idealism,  we  can  turn  from  our  chaos 
to  him,  who  is  our  own  true  and  divine  self,  and  can  hear  from 
him  wath  absolute  assurance  this  one  word.  '0  ye  who  des- 
pair, I  grieve  with  you.  Your  sorrow  is  mi'ne.  I  suffer  it 
all,  for  all  things  are  mine:  I  bear  it,  and  yet  I  trium])h,"-'* 
It  is  not  for  us  to  have  a  private  happiness  when  the  '^Logos  is 
our  own  fulfilment."-"^ 


21.  A.   K.   Rogers  "The  Rijfhts  of   Man  •   in   the   International   Journal  of   Ethics,    vol. 
22,    p.    423. 

22.  See   Martineau,   Ibid.  p.   205.        23.  Ibid.  p.   263. 

24.  The  .Spirit  of  Modem  Philosopohy,  p.  470.      25.  Ibid.  470.. 


82 


lioycc    ami    IitdiriilHalion 


111. 


Iteferc'iice  lias  bceu  made  to  Koyee's  iise  of  contrast  and 
of  rigid  alternatives.  If  the  individual  per  se  is  taket,  a.s 
absolutelv  isolated  and  over  against  such  possible  life  is  placed 
the  rich*  context  of  any  actual  life,  one  feels  that  the  latter 
iuu.-,i  be  chosen.  It  is  agreed  here  that  uothing  of  this  rich 
context  is  to  be  omitted.  It  is  agreed  further  that  most  of 
that  which  ^ve  may  call  the  content  of  any  life  is  made  up 
of  this  context.  All  that  is  involved  in  vicarious  happiness 
is  not  to  be  slighted  for  an  instant.  The  contention  is  that, 
however  lofty  such  a  vicarious  i.lc^d  may  be,  it  stops  short 
of  the  highest. 

In  actual  life  rigid  alternatives  are  not  so  common  asin 
conceptual  construction.  No  unmixed  individualism  exists 
except  in  the  constructions  of  thought.  And  no  purely  lii^pev- 
sonal  career  exists  except  in  the  same  realm  of  ideals.  Actual 
life  shows  a  mingling  of  ideals.  One  may  pursue  one  s  way 
indifferent  largely  to  the  welfare  of  others.  While  ruthless_in 
competitive  business  one  may  show  ideal  home  affection.  Ihe 
issue  seems  to  lie  not  so  much  between  a  personal  demand  and 
an  impersonal  service,  as  between  personal  demands  and  per- 
sonal convictions  as  to  how  demands  are  to'be  realized. 

It  may  be  that  some  relations  in  life  seem  impersonal,  but 
they  are  "rather  such  as  are  not  consciously  personal.  Many 
relations  in  life,  when  forming,  are  replete  with  personal  feel- 
in-  but  having  been  found  acceptable  and  satisfactory,  taey 
haw  taken  an  assui^d  place  in  the  habitual.  The  personal 
sense  has  become  implicit.  It  is  contended  that  a  cause  which 
becomes  impersonal  in  reality  soon  ceases  to  command  the  ser- 
vice of  men.  No  imi)ersonal  cause  'fascmates  one.  It  is 
evident  that  the  distinction  of  selfish  and  unselfish  is  not 
synonymous  with  the  distinction  of  personal  and  impersonal. 
Indeed  th<>  truly  unselfish  is  the  truly  personal. 

Psychology  infomis  us  that  every  experience,  from  the  sim- 
plest up,  is  affectively  toned.  These  primary  elements  e^iter 
into  complex  forms  such  as  feelings,  emotions  and  sentiments. 
It  is  hard  to  find  any  other  finally  decisive  evidence  that  a 


Bujjce   and  Indicidiiaiion 


8.'] 


certain  course  is  the  best  thtni  the  personaP^  sense  of  satisfaction 
and  intellectual  approval.  The  intellect  might  in  theory 
acquiesce  in  a  sinking  of  the  self.  But  it  would  be  limited  to 
a  theoretical  approval.  Keal  choice  is  ever  between  personal 
desires.  The  would-be  conqueror  is  not  happy  in  defeat. 
Choice  has  not  been  his.  The  patriot  is  not  happy  in  giving 
up  all  personal  satisfaction  to  love  his  country  and  to  die  for 
it.  The  conqueror,  in  defeat,  may  study  the  value  of  resig- 
nation. The  dying  patriot  knows  what  renunciation  means'^ 
A  happiness  of  a  finer  strain  is  his  and  he  is  not  defeated  even 
in  his  death.  AVitli  a  Xatban  Hale,  he  could  wish  he  had 
more  than  one  life  to  offer,  for  his  highest  desire  is  realized. 
Xow,  as  noted  before,  the  limitation  in  the  view  of  Prof.  Royce 
is  not  that  he  does  not  mention  the  patriot,  but  that  he  deems 
his  death  for  his  country  an  impersonal  service  or  rather  a 
service  of  an  impersonal  cause.  It  is  contended  that  life  and 
its  interests  up  to  the  highest  are  personal.  My  country's 
welfare  is  an  end  for  me  only  as  it  is  my  end. 

When  I  read  that  moral  individuals  ^'have  their  individual- 
ity and  must  subordinate  it,"^*  it  appears  that  Royce  is  using 
the  method  of  contrast  and  doing  less  than  justice  to  the  fact 
that  the  springs  of  moral  conduct  are  ever  personal.  It  is  not 
a  sufficient  answer  to  this  charge  to  point  to  the  personal  choos- 
ing of  such  sulwrdination.  To  choose  to  ignore,  to  depersonalize 
oneself,  if  possible  at  all,  is  to  cut  oneself  off  from  that  which 
is  at  once  the  source  of  initiative  and  the  ultimate  test  of  that 
which  is  acceptable.  One  might  ask,  if  all  choose  the  imper- 
sonal, who  will  initiate  a  cause?  Interest  is  a  term  with  a 
personal  reference.  Indeed  pure  altruism  would  be  possible 
only  where  great  leaders  were  not  pure  altruists. 

To  substitute  for  personal  satisfaction  and  personal  happi- 
ness in  the  temporal  a  resignation  which  takes  comfort  in  the 
somewhat  intangible  or  super-temporal  eternal  triumph  is  to 
do  less  than  justice  to  the  inherent  sense  of  personal  right.  If 
the  temix>ral  process  or  experience  as  such,  is  only  a  super- 
ficial and  negligible  vehicle  of  eternal  ends,  why  be  even  im- 
personal?    The  very  nen^e  of  our  e'ndeavors  in  the  time-pro- 

20.  A.  K.  Rogers  in  The  Philosophical  Review,  1915,  p.  594.  For  the  approviil  of 
new  issues  we  must  "go  back  of  institutional  reason  to  those  personal  springs  of 
conduct  which,  to  be  sure,  need  rationalizing,  but  which  nevertheless  in  themselves 
are  ultimate  facts,    that  set  the  direction  and  supply   the  motive  power,   of  all   our 

ends.'' 

27.  Soo  W.   E.  Hocking.     The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,   p.   501. 

28.  The  Conception   of  God.   p.   ?>21. 


84 


Iloyce   and  Indlciduuiloa 


I 


cess  is  the  cle^i^e  to  achieve  something  even  there  in  the  same 
time-process.     It  is  only  in  retreat  that  one  seeks  the  comfort 
of  a  second  best.     Even  if  ^^niy  true  comfort  can  never  lie  in 
my    temporal    attainment    of    my    goal,"'^''    it    Avill    be  very 
discouriioino-    if    I    do    not    make    some    temporal    achieve- 
ment.      J^sitive    action,     initiated    by    the    conscious     will, 
cannot     maintain     itself     if     this     sense     of     comfort     per- 
meates  one's  being.     Comfort  in   an   eternal   triumph   rather 
than  a  temporal  success  will  tend  thus  to  the  passive  and  as  a 
]>rinciple   markini?   the  highest    attainment  of   the    individual 
it  will  lack  -launching  power."^"     Life  reveals  that  all  ends 
are  glimpsed  by  i^ersons  and  pursued  as  personal  ends.        It 
does  not  present  the  rigid  alternatives  which  have  an  existence 
in  the  doctrines  of  Royce.     In  a  world  too  large  for  any  one 
to  compass  even  in  his  thought,  we  seek  a  harmonious  dilTev- 
entiation  of  life  rather  than  uniiication.     Even  if  I  attempt  to 
estimate  the  meani'ng  or  significance  of  the  world's  trend,  my 
account  is  very  deeply  influenced  by  my  pre-possessions.  These 
are  so  largely  outside  of  or  beyond  the  reach  of  direct  con- 
sciousness that  the  attempt  to  be  other  than  personal  is  surely 
futile.^' 

The  bclf-alienatiiig  ideal  |X?rmeates  the  whole  of  the  second 
period.     The  ultimate  ideal  is  unification.     To  this  end  the  -elf 
is  subordinated.     That  life  which  is  allowed  to  a  subordinated 
self  is  pictured  in  true  Rcycean  fashion  as  ever  temporally  m- 
complete  and  disappointing.     Over  against  this  is  the  eternal 
triumph.     One  gets  a  joy  amid  defeat  and  subordination  m 
that  one  shares  in  this  eternal  triumph.     "In  the  Absolute  I 
I       am  fulfilled."'-     Surely  something  of  my  zest  in  action  will 
)      be  lost  if  I  thus  lose  confidence  in  the  worth  of  my  temporal 
Lr   endeavors. 

IV. 

At  all  stages  in  his  work  Royce  has  made  explicit  that  the 
finite  individual  has  the  privilege  of  choice.     In  the  earliest 


r 


29    The  World  and   the  Individual.   IT,   p.   407. 

30'  W    E    Hockinj?  in  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  p.   5<,0. 

3l'  E    B     McGilvary    (in  the  Hibbert  Journal,    Oct.    1915,   p.    59). 

Writes    "when  we  seek  to  see  with  open  eye  and  to  understand  with  open  mind, 
wo    Bhiuld    recognize     that     our     noblest     impartialities    "f    P^^-^f '^;^^^  ?.^^^^'^g'^- 
Their    nobility    is    derived    by    patent    from    our    fundamental    preference,      p.    62 
-That  which  we  prefer  above  all  else  when  we  know  all  that  we  can  know  nbout 

32.  Tiie'worM  and  ihe'^lndividual.  II.  p.  409.     This  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole 
chapter  on  Evil    HX.) 


Tioijre   and  Indlridnalion 


85 


book  we  are  told  that  the  Divine  Thought  comes  into  the  ^con- 
sciousness' of  the  individuaP^  It  is  surely  evident  that  it 
does  not  come  as  a  clear  cut  ideal,  but  rather  as  one  teidatiidy 
formulated  and  as  one  to  be  tested  empiricaHy.^'^  There  will  be 
no  distinction  between  the  ardor  of  service  of  ^one  who  has  made 
a  mistaken  interpretation  and  the  ardor  of  one  who  has  had 
clearer  insight.  All  sorts  of  charges  and  counter-charges  will 
be  in  order  when  these  varied  interpretations  seek  for  universal 
application.  The  plea  of  impartiality,  of  conscientiousncvsses,  or 
of  disinterestedness  will  hardly  avail  to  settle  the  positive  points 
under  dispute.  To  one  disputant,  the  position  of  another  will 
appear  as  biassed  and  personal.^''  One  may  decide  to  choose 
impersonal  ends  and  to  afi'ect  a  detachment  from  all  that  is 
merely  personal,  yet  one's  actions  will  be  read  by  others  in  terms 
of  personal  ideals  and  endeavors. 

Now  it  does 'not  appear  to  me  that  in  a  community  ^unificr^- 
tion'  per  se  is  the  ideal.  Hence  a  unitary,  impersonal  and 
common  aim  is  not  the  essential.  An  harmonious  differentia- 
tion of  interests  appears  to  be  a  better  working  ideal.  The 
individual  then  springs  from  the  common  life  and  in  the  find- 
ing what  his  true  nature  i^  or  what  he  is  built  to  do  or  achieve, 
his  distinctiveness  arises.  The  impulse  toward  individuality 
has  come  from  below  not  from  above.  I  mean  that  in  approach- 
ing the  question  of  individuality  the  biological  is  the  starting 
point.  The  endeavor  to  begin  with  the  thinking  and  willing 
of  an  Absolute,  while  productive  of  much  in  the  way  of  idea, 
seems  to  miss  contact  with  realitv. 

In  the  third  period  the  natural  ideal  of  morality  foi  a 
community  is  vitiated  by  the  effort  to  reconcile  community  with 
the  older  absolutism. ^^  The  all-inclusive  communitv  is  at- 
taine<l  through  lesser  unities  which  are  true  individuals,  with 
minds,  wills,  etc.  All  this  is  to  be  attained  in  thought  by  the 
individual  consciousness,  and  having  attained  the  vision  of  these 


33.  See  the  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,   p.   470. 

34.  "If  the  issue  between  moral  ideals  is  to  be  decided  by  the  issue,  why  should  one 
ideal  politely,  nay,  ignominiously,  withdraw  from  the  scene  of  conflict.  And  who 
is  to  fight  for  my  ideals  but  myself  and  those  who  share  them  with  me?  E,  B. 
MGilvray — Hibbert   Journal,    Oct.    1915. 

35.  The  peace  advocates  on  the  Ford  Armada  soon  found  that  great  causes  do  not 
voice  themselves  outside  of  the  limitations  of  persons.  No  superhuman  unitary 
view    was   forthcoming.      Even   harmony   existed   only   formally. 

only  formally. 

36.  J.  E.  Harrison  in  "Alpha  and  Omega"  p.  195,  says,  "Royce  intends  his  old  mon- 
ism. Yet  his  emphasis  on  the  will,  then  on  the  community  or  herd,  links  him 
back  with  the  newer  psychology  of  McDougall  which  is  not  monistic."  lb.  29 
"At  the  outset,   what   draws  society  together  is  sympathy,   similarity,   utiiformity." 


80 


lloijcr    ah(J   Iixiiridiiafion 


higher  unities,  one  must  choose  to  serve  these  impersonal  ends. 
We  have  noted  the  difficulty  which  arises  in  that  the  indivi- 
dual is  to  be  convinced  in  his  own  mind  of  the  actual  nature 
of  these  unities  and  k^cause  further  his  allegiance  is  ever  a 
matter  of  ])orsonal  decision.  Xo  maiter  what  one  may  do,  it 
will  lo.>k  like  personal  origination  and  personal  ambition. 

The  onlv  I'cason  that  ioyalty  to  a  cause'  or  Royalty  to  h)y- 
alty'  seems 'so  unmixed  a'iul  so  detached  from  all  personal  bias, 
is  because  they  remain  in  the  region  of  the  formal.  In  the 
realm  of  objective  conditions,  some  one  always  initiates  causes, 
and  in  so  doing  carries  to  an  outsider  the  appearance  of  beir.g 
personally  interested.  Xow  it  is  submitted  that  this  mxut  be 
so  and  being  so  is  quite  natural.  If  there  is  in  men  in  society 
the  bare  determination  that  there  shall  be  a  law,  this  bare  will 
is  alike  in  all.  It  is  a  unitary  attitude  if  one  is  longing  for 
unity.  Ihit  it  is  destined  as  it  centers  the  world  of  affairs  t^^ 
break  up  into  innumeral)le  interpretations  of  its  practical 
meaning  and  application.  It  will  be,  no  doubt,  a  good  thin- 
to  have  all  resolved  on  unanimity  rather  than  strife.  But  the 
actual  world  is  too  large  for  the  and)itious  dream  of  one  will 
(Mnbodif'i]. 

While  the  alternative  po.-ition  of  the  third  period  (»pcns  the 
way  to  a  true  principle  of  morality,  the  ideal  of  self-alienalion 
is  retained-'  through  the  effort  to  retain  the  notion  of  an  Al>so- 
lute.      In  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  in  the  chapter  on  Indivi- 
dualism the  idea  of  individuality  is  emptied  of  all  contents  ex- 
cept the  bare  boast  that  one  is  such.     The  man  who  holds  to 
an  individualistic  principle  in  morals  is  shut  off  from  the  veal 
world.     He  can  but  ^gesticulate'.       Hence  "there  is  only  one 
way  to  be  an  ethical  individualist.     That  is  to  choose  your 
cause  and  then  serve  it,  as  the  Samurai  his  feudal  chief,  as 
the  ideal  knight  of  romantic  story  his  lady,— in  the  spirit  of 
all  the  loyal."''     The  individualist  is  one  who  seeks  ''onh/  the 
mere  collection  of  liis  private  experiences  of  his  personal  thrills 
of  fascination."   The  loyal  one  seeks  "success  and  from  moment 
to  moment  indeed  thrills  with  a  purely  fragmentary  and  tem- 
porary joy  in  the  love  of  service.     But  the  joy  deix^nds  on  a 

37  See  "The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty."  p.  354  f.  "Your  true  good  can  never  be  won 
Rud  verified  by  you  in  terms  to  which  the  present  fonn  and  scope  of  our  human 
extrTemo  i«  ^«d^ouato.  T>.o  best  that  you  can  ^et  lies  in  sclf-surrender  nnd  m 
yoSr  personal  assurance  that  the  cause  to  which  you  surrender  y^'^^^'^^l^^ 
fi'ood  "  lb  p  389.  "My  success  is  real  only  m  so  far  as  some  conscious  ..le, 
which   includes  rnv   idea. oh.erves   try   success."      Italics   are  mme. 


Boijcc   and  Indiculaai'iun 


bi 


30 


belief  in  a  distinctly  superhuman  type  of  unity  of  life.'' 
The  criticism  is  offered  here  that  unless  a  cause  depends  on 
more  than  a  belief,  it  is  likely  to  obtain  little  more  than  the 
intellectual  assent.  Further  when  I  ask  myself  how  far  my 
citizenship  is  based  on  a  belief  in  a  superhuman  type  of  life, 
I  fail  to  find  that  such  a  theory  figures  much  in  the  matter. 
The  life  of  a  citizen  may  be  superhuman,  if  I  read  the  human 
in  terms  of  a  life  of  a  recluse  or  a  hermit.  But  to  the  average 
individual,  life  in  society  and  the  state  is  just  human  life. 
When  I  look  at  society,  it  appears  to  me  that  individuals  are 
seeking  each  to  live  his  owu  life,  trying  to  find  out  his  own 
powers  and  seeking  to  use  such  in  accomplishing  some  line  of 
work  which  gives  him  true  satisfaction.  Where  I  find  people 
serving  causes,  I  find  individuals  who  deem  those  causes  to  be 
tlie  thing  which  they  most  desire.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence 
of  unselfishness  but  none  of  the  impersonal. 

We  are  told  that  ''to  have  a  conscience,  then,  is  to  hav»^  a 
cause,  to  unify  vour  life  by  meaus  of  an  ideal  deteruiined  bv 
this  cause,  and  to  compare  the  ideal  and  the  life."^°  Heie 
we  have  a  situation  struck  off  in  such  definite  terms  that  the 
doubt  arises  whether  it  deals  with  actual  human  life  or  moves 
in  the  realm  of  intellectual  construction.  'To  have  a  cause* 
seems  to  imply  that  causes  some  w^ay  are  given,  are  there. 
One  has  but  to  cast  over  them  a  critical  glance  and  choose.  ^To 
unify  one's  life  by  means  of  an  ideal'  seems  an  identical  pre- 
position. Surely  a  life  being  unified  is  a  life  wdiich  is  form- 
ing an  ideal.  The  doubt  grows  that  Royce  is  here  w^orking 
among  conceptions.  Causes  in  real  life  are  'not  given.  Soire 
personal  faith  and  demand  brings  each  new  ideal  into  the  field 
of  ex}>erimentation.  There  it  must  prove  its  worth  and  that  in- 
volves those  who  are  ready  to  fight  for  it  as  an  ideal.  They 
do  this,  not  because  reason  has  looked  it  all  over  and  has  given 
its  sanction,  but  because  of  some  insistent  inner  compulsion. 
^'The  force  of  an  ideal  depends,  not  on  my  finding  it  true,  but 
on  my  insistence  that  it  shall  be  true."*^  Causes  have  their 
birth  back  in  individual  impulses  and  desires.      It  is  only  in 


38.  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  98.  See  another  interpretation,  J.  E.  Harrison  in 
'Alpha  and  Omega',  p.  97  f.  says  "one  secret  of  the  intense  joy  in  loving  and 
being  loved  is  the  immense  reinforcement  of  one's  own  personality.  Suddenly  to 
another,  you  become  what  you  have  always  been  to  yourself,  the  centre  of  the 
universe." 

39.  The  Philosophy  of  Loj-alty,   p.   330.      40.   Ibid.   p.    175. 


88 


lluyce    and   Indie  id  ualioa 


reflection  after  the  event  that  the  reasons  come  out  clearly  to 
the  light.     When  this  stage  of  conseionsness  is  hypostasised  as 
aii  absolute  and  supernatural  Smght'   we  have  the  author  of 
the  'causes'  which  one  is  supposed  to  sample  and  to  choose  from. 
The  true  'ought'  is  personal  and  individual  and  while  its  'lead- 
ing' will  need  to  be  criticized  in  the  light  of  past  experience, 
its"^ final  or  ultimate  'clearance  papers'  are  validated  and  viseed 
not  so  much  by  reason  as  by  personal  deuuind.     Pn-adley  has 
told  us  that  metaphysics  is  the  tinding  of  bad  reasons  for  what 
wo  believe  on  instinct.     The  Eeason^^  which  is  the  universal 
solvent  of  all  problems  and  whose  advocate  is  the  absolutist, 
is  one  which  works  in  the  timeless  a'nd  spaceless  abstractions 
of  the  intellect.     There  is  the  vision  of  eternal  truth.     Eeason 
in  actual  life  "is  the  progressive  attempt  to  realize,  by  adjust- 
ing it  to  tlie  conditions  of  its  exercise,  a  constant  new  stream 
of^'appreciative  insight  into  what  shall  have  satisfying  wort?i 
for  life.""     This  comes,  not  in  a  manipulating  of  intellectu^^l 
concepts  but  "in  the  unfolding  of  an  inner  nature." 

The  ability  theti  to  outline  so  sun-clear  a  statement  of  a  man'j 
duty  in  terms  of  loyalties  and  causes  arises,  it  is  submitted, 
from  the  essentiallv  intellectual  realm  m  w^hich  thought  is 
moving.  The  future  which  is  already  present  to  this  eternal 
consciousness  is  for  us  yet  hidden  in  the  movements  of  life 
whose  deepest  current  is  found  in  the  fundamental  desires  and 
impulses  of  individuals.  Eeason  has  its  place  as  a  function 
making  possible  a  more  comprehc^nsive  satisfaction  and  attain- 
ment. In  that  event,  to  talk  of  'impersonal  causes,  seems  in- 
deed unreal.  "Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence  for  out  of  if 
are  the  issues  of  life."** 

It  appears  to  me  Koyce's  whole  philosophy  attempts  to  de- 
fine the  self  in  terms  of  content."     For  this  reason  the   .elf. 


41  \     K     Rogers    in    The    Philosophical    Review,    1915,    p.    589. 

42  J  E  Harrison  in  'Alpha  and  Omega'  p.  134.  "The  tendency  of  the  intellect 
pura  and  simple  is  temporally  to  remove,  to  cut  loose,  from  practical  reaction,  to 
inducti   sheor   contemplation." 

43  A  K.  Rogers,  Phil.  Rev.  (1915)  p.  592.  See  also  J.  E.  H'^^moj^.  z'^'f^Nf"! 
Omeea'  p  liO.  says  Vintellect  is  never  wholly  and  separately  intellectual.  It  is 
l^Thin,  charged  with,  dependent  on,  arising  out  of  emotional  desire  ...  .we  can 
wat.-h  tho  physical  ai:d  emotional  sides  of  knowing  in  our  own  mmds. 

44.   Provorbi   4/23. 

45  Compare  the  W^orld  and  the  Ii.dividual,  I.  p.  327,  "We  begin  with  perhaps  a  very 
ind^finitu  sort  of  restlessness,  which  arouses  the  question.  What  is  it  that  I  want? 

I?re  th^  construction  of  tho  i-lea  transforms  tlu^  va^o  TuT^'"^^'^^^ 
a  i>uroo3e      It  is  a  plan  oi  action— not  the  action.     But  lb.  p.   ^3.     In  t!.e  same 
se^o  any  conscious  act  at  the  moment  v.  hen  y<.u  perform  it  not  merely  expresses 
but  is    in  my  present  sense,  an  idea."     Here  idea  is  the  action  in  concrete-not 


lloycc    and.    Indicidualiun 


80 


with  its  roots  back  amid  desires,  impulses  and  instincts,  seems 
lost  to  sight.  Reflection  and  interpretation  work  amid  the 
contents  of  thought,  not  directly  on  the  actual  physical  world. 
Hence  ideals  are  presented  full  grown  and  in  terms  of  the 
objects  or  contents  of  thouglit.  The  self  is  alienated,  not  only 
in  that  it  is  denied  the  full  satisfactions  that  are  its  due,  but 
also  because  it  finds  its  causes  given.  It  is  to  'find'  not  'make' 
truth.  The  evolutionists,  against  wdiose  metaphysics  Royce 
reacted  in  his  early  life,  w^ould  show  man  as  fixed  in  the  grip 
of  a  law  of  progress.  Royce  would  start  from  the  top^^'  rather 
than,  with  the  scientist,  from  the  bottom.  But  equally  wdtli 
the  latter  he  has  men  in  the  grip  of  a  lavr.  Here  it  is  Reason 
or  the  Absolute. 

Both  sides  need  to  look  more  closely  at  the  facts  of  man's 
life.  The  sense  of  sitting  relatively  loose  from  any  law  of 
progress  or  any  absolute  is  a  psychological  fact.  Pro- 
gress does  "depend  upon  new  and  untried  expressions  of 
creative  spontaneity  centering  in  individuals."^"  This  spon- 
taneity in  man  is  tempered  ever  by  the  presence  of  reason. 
This  in  memorv  and  consciousness,  is  that  which  acts  critically 
by  way  of  re-presentation  on  the  urge  of  impulse  a'nd  desire. 
Reason  is  critical  of  but  not  creative  of  values.  The  finite  in- 
dividual is  a  reasoning  being,  not  reason.  "Man  is  a  part  of 
Mature,  carried  on  by  her  forces  to  work  the  works  of  intelli- 
irence.     In  him  she  bursts  forth  into  sustained  consciousness 

of  her  own  evolution He  has  grown  out  of  Nature's 

stuff,  and  been  wrought  in  her  workshop."*^  Consciousness  in 
man  is  no  by-product  but  Nature's  supreme  device  for  con- 
tinuing evolution  beyond  the  limitations  of  mere  groping  exis- 
tence. This  being  is  in  a  world  which  he  is  learning  to  know\ 
In  such  interaction  not  only  is  the  world  know^n  but  the  onds 
which  appeal  to  him  come  to  clear  consciousness.  Man  is  then 
an  empirical  being,  a  spring  of  wants,  impulses  a'nd  desires. 
These  show  in  active  dispositions  or  tendencies  to  action.  Our 
thinking  has  ever  something  of  a  personal  bias. 

merely  in  plan.  Royce  thus  notes  a  psychological  fact  and  passes  to  another  posii- 
tion  by  this  identification  of  experience  as  a  purposive  idea  and  experience  as  it 
fulfils  this  purpose.  Then  ho  defines  the  individual  in  terms  of  the  lattcx'.  But 
surely  tho  identification  is  impossible.  See  on  this  point  A.  W.  Moore,  Studies 
in   Logirnl   Theory,   p.   349   f.   365. 

46.  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  p.  346.  "Truth,  means,  as  pragmatism  asserts,  the  ful- 
filment of  a  need.  But  we  all  need  the  superhuman,  the  city  out  of  sight,  the 
union  with  all  life, — the  essentially  eternal."  Finding  the  'need'  emphasized  i)y  the 
pragmitist,   in  trie  superhuman  is  Roycf 's  way  of  being  empirical. 

47.  A.  K.  Rogers,  The  Philosophic.'il  R-^v.  Vol.  2  i,  p.  591. 

48.  Woodbridge.   The  Hibbert  Journnl,    VI.   pp.   16,    I?. 


'JO 


lluyce    anti   Indicuhuiiluu 


Possibly  no  better  instance  of  the  self-alienating  ideal  in 
Prof.  Royce's  position  can  be  bad  than  the  opening  paragraph 
of  his  speech  on  "The  Duties  of  Americans,  in  the  Present  war'' 
delivered  in  Tremont  Temple,  Jan.  30,  1916.  He  says  "I 
fully  agree  with  those  who  believe  that  men  cati  reasonably 
define  their  rights  only  in  terms  of  their  duties.  I  have  moral 
rights  only  in  so  far  as  I  also  have  duties.  I  have  a  right  to 
inv  life  because  it  gives  me  my  sole  opportunity  to  do  my  duty. 
I  lav  a  right  to  happiness  solely  because  a  certain  measure 
of  happiness  is  needed  to  adapt  me  to  do  the  work  of  a  man. 
I  have  a  right  to  possess  some  opportunity  to  fulfil  the  office 
of  a  man:  that  is,  I  have  a  right  to  get  some  chance  to  do  my 
(lutv.     That  is,  in  fact,  my  sole  inalienable  right." 

Ail  this  is  admirable  if  one  has  a  clear-cut  and  adequate 
conception  of  ^the  office  of  a  man'  or  of  *duty'.  It  is  possible 
that  very  many  sincere  people  would  agree  thus  far  and  yet  dis- 
agree with  Prof.  Royce  in  his  application  of  his  view  given 
above  to  a  specific  problem ;  America's  attitude  to  Germany  i:i 
t1,r  r.resent  war.  Such  difference  of  opinion  reveals  the  essential- 
ly ideal  nature  of  S'ight'  i>nd  Vluty'  as  here  correlated.  They 
are  stated  in  the  most  general  way  as  if  the  most  formal  stat.j- 
ment  had  a  very  definite  reference  in  the  world  of  actual  af- 
fairs. ^Rights'  and  'Duties'  however  are  not  there  as  'given'. 
Individuals  have  more  to  do  than  just  declare  their  allegiance 
to  duties  representing  causes  of  wider  scope  than  any  private 
interest. 

It  is  submitted  that  here  in  this  clear  distinction  of  'right' 
and  'duty'  we  are  in  the  realm  of  the  conceptual.  When  Royco 
seeks  to  connect  with  actual  affairs,  he  sets  forth  what  is  a 
quite  debateable  doctrine.  The  su-n-clear  ideal  does  not  give 
guidance.  One  side,  no  doubt,  would  say  Prof.  Royce  is  right, 
the  other  would,  at  the  least,  say,  that  he  had  stated  his  own 
personal  convictions. 

What  is  right  and  hence  what  is  our  duty  is  only  emerging 
gradually  in  the  natures  of  men.  To  make  'happiness'  -nature's 
mducement  to  entice  the  individual  to  his  duty  is  to  do  less 
than  justice  to  the  place  of  satisfaction  in  any  man's  life. 
Some  wav  it  is  not  objective  reason,  telling  of  duties  clearly 
])laced  bc'fore  us,  that  settles  the  question  of  right  or  wrong  for 
us.  That  mav  do  for  one  who  a(}rees  with  Royce.  But  how  about 


Jioijre    ni:<l   IiuJiridnafion 


1)[ 


one  who  disagrees.  Some  say  that  disagreement  points  to  a 
more  ultimate  court  of  approval  and  disapproval,  the  individinl 
himself.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  duty  stands  in  its  claim  apart 
from  individual  interpretation  and  approval.  The  distinction 
of  right  a'lid  duty  is  another  of  the  rigid  distinctions  which  are 
found  so  often  in  Rovce.  In  actual  life  my  right  to  be  truly 
satisfied  is  my  duty.  I  find  no  way  to  choose  between  claims 
on  my  attention  than  some  sense  of  personal  satisfaction  and 
approval.  No  evidence  which  does  not  satisfy  me  commands 
my  acceptance.  So  far  from  my  rights  and  my  happiness  be- 
ing measured  in  terms  of  duty,  the  reverse  seems  nearer  to  the 
actual.  The  rigid  distinction  drawn  between  the  two  and  the 
preeminence  given  to  'duty'  seem  to  give  an  air  of  self-seeking 
to  the  word  'right'.  The  choice  however  is  never  between  a 
personal  and  selfish  right  and  a  larger  and  impersonal  duty, 
with  a  small  thrill  of  happiness  allowed  one  in  order  that  o?ie 
may  be  enticed  on  to  the  larger  path  of  duty.  Even  duty  must 
not  be  read  in  impersonal  terms.  A  desire  to  further  the  wel- 
fare of  men  about  me,  if  it  wins  my  service,  does  so  only  l)C- 
cause  it  is  that  in  which  I  find  most  satisfaction.  It  is  not 
im]>ersonal  or  something  else  than  a  right.  It  is  my  right  and 
it  ffives  me  most  satisfaction. 

(H)NT'Lrsi()X. 


1 


The  existence  of  the  Absolute,  I  have  contended,  has  not 
been  proved  by  Royce.  Hence  the  individuation  traced  to  the 
thought  or  will  of  the  Absolute  hangs  in  the  air. 

It  is  contended  further  that  the  finite  individual  is  defined 
throughout  in  terms  of  'content'.  This  'content'  is  hypcstatised 
as  the  individual.  The  union  of  'consciousness'  with  its  content 
is  taken  as  the  union  of  thought  with  the  actual  objects  of  the 
real  world.  The  terms  *solf'  and  'experience'  are  also  ab- 
stractions of  the  intellect.  The  only  change  seems  to  be  that 
the  latter  term  with  'will'  marks  a  change  of  the  'content'  froui 
static  to  dynamic  terms,  from  thought  to  thinking.  Will,  des- 
pite its  relation,  as  stated,  to  desire,  is  but  a  clearly  defined 
purpose,  an  intention  to  act,  and  hence  is  intellectual  and  ab- 
stract.     'Interpretation'  nls^o  is  ideal  con^tructioiK 


92 


Royce   and   Individuation 


Xo  clefi'nitlon  or  description  of  the  individual  in  terms  of 
the  ^content'  of  consciousness  can  give  us  reality  as  it  is.  Hence 
such  an  approach  to  the  nature  of  individuality  casts  little  or 
no  light  upon  that  nature. 

II. 

The  rlieory  of  an  Absolute  and  a  defining  of  the  individual 
in  terms  of  intellectual  content  going  hand  in  hand,  I  have 
traced  to  this  untenable  view  the  defining  of  the  moral  ideal 
i'n  terms  which  portray  a  vicarious  or  self  alienating  principle. 
The  mere  unitv  of  consciousness  and  of  ideal  constructions  is 
not  adequate  to  the  facts  of  real  life.  In  the  human  individual, 
life  is  seen  issuing  from  springs  of  desire  and  impulse  and 
these,  as  well  as  explicit  reflective  conscious'ness,  I  regard  as 
personal.  The  genius  of  community  is  harmonious  differen- 
tiation of  interest,  not  mere  unification 


lloijce    and   Indlciduallon 


0:> 


BIRirOGRAPHY. 


Armstrong,  A.  C. — A  review  of  "The  Problem  of  ('hristianitv' 

in  The  Phil.  Rev.,  vol.  XXIII. 
Bakewell,  C.  M. — 'The  Problem  of  Transcendence'  in  The  Phil. 

Rev.,  vol.  XX. 

A  review  of  'The  World  and  The  IndividuaF  in  The 

International  Journal  of  Ethics,  vol.  12. 
Bergson,   H. — 'Creative   p]volution\        Trans.    Mitchell,    Xew 

York,  1911. 
Bible,  The. 

Bosanquet,  B. — 'The  Princi})le  of  Individuality  and  Value.' 
Bradley,  F.  H. — 'The  Principles  of  Logic\ 

'Essavs  on  Truth  ond  Realitv'. 
Browning,  R. — "Paracelsus'. 
Dewey,  J. — 'German  Philoso})by  and  Polities'. 

'The   Influence  of   Darwin   on   Philosophy   and   other 
Essays'. 

Reviews  of  Vols.  I  and  II  of  'The  World  and  the  In- 
dividual' in  The  Phil.  Rev.,  vols.  IX  and  XL 

'Experience  and  Objective  Idealism'  an  article  in  The 
Phil.  Rev.,  vol.  XV. 

A  review  in  The  Phil.  Rev.,  vol.  XXI  of  'Wm.  James 
and  Other  Essavs'. 
Eerrier,  J.  E. — 'Institutes'. 
Eite  Warner — 'Individualism'. 
Harrison,  J.  E. — 'Alpha  grid  Omega'. 

Hocki'ng,  W.  E. — 'The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience' 
Howison,  G.  II. — The  Conception  of  God'. 

The  Journal  of  Phil.  Psy.  and  Sci.  Method,  Feb.  17, 
'16,  p.  99. 
Jacks,  L.  P. — A  review  of  "The  Problem  of  Christianitv'   in 

'The  Hibbert-Journar  vol.  XII,  X'o.  1. 
James,  Wm. — 'Mind,  vol.  VII. 

'The  Pluralistic  Universe'. 

'The  Meaning  of  Truth'. 

"The  Will  to  Believe'. 
Jones,  H'y — A  review  of  'The  World  and  the  Individual'  in 

'The  Hibbert  Journal'  vol.  I,  Xo.  I. 
Kant. — Letters. 
Lovejoy,   A.   O. — ''The   0])solescence  of  the  Eternal'   in  the 

Philosophical  Review,  vol.  XVIII. 


i>4 


Roifcc   and   Individuation 


Lowell,  J.  J{. — Poems. 

^i  nilvarv,  E.    B.— The  Warfare  of  Moral  Ideals',   in  The 
Hibbert  Joiirnar  Oct.   1915. 

.Macintosh,  D.  C. — 'The  Problem  of  Knowledge'. 

M  trtineaii,  J. — The  Study  of  Keligion'. 

M   Tnggart,  J.  M. — ^Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic.     The  Ee- 

lation   of   Time  to   Eternity',    an   a-ddress   before   the 

(\qlifornia  Union,  1908. 

Miller,  D.  8. — The  Meaning  of  Truth  and  Error',  an  article 
in  The  Philosophical  Review,  vol.  1, 

Moore,  A.  W. — 'Some  Logical  AsjxH'ts  of  Purpose'  in  'Studies 

in  Logical  Theory'  by  J.  Dowey,  et  al. 
Miinsterberg,  II. — Grundzuge  der  Psychologic. 

Overstreet,  H.  A. — 'Change  and  the  Changeless'  in  The  Phil. 

Rev.,  vol.  XVIII. 
Rogers,  A.  K. — 'Professor  Rovce  and  Monism,  The  Phil.  Rev. 
vol.  XII. 

'Determination  of  Human  Ends',  The  Phil.  Rev.  vol. 
XXIV. 

'Reason  and  Feeling  in  Ethics',   The  Phil.   iCev.   \'ol. 
XXV. 
'The  Rights  of  Man',  an  article  in  The  International 

Journal  of  Ethics,  vol.  XXII. 
^Epistemological  Dualism',  an  article  in  the  Journal  of 

Phil.  Psy.  and  Sc.  Method,  vol.  XIII,  Xo.  7. 

lioyce,  Josiah — The  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  1885. 
The  Spirit  of  ^lodem  Philosophy,  1892. 
The  Conception  of  G(k1,  1897. 

The  World  and  The  Individual,  2  vols.,  1899,  190L 
The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  1908. 
The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  1911. 
The  Problem  of  Christianity,  2  vols.,  1913. 
Collected  Essavs. 
Studies  in  Good  and  Evil. 
Wni.  James  and  Other  Essavs. 

a 

Santanyana,  G. — The  J.  of  Phil.  Psy.  and  Sci.  Method,  Xov. 
^5,  '15. 

-Sidgwick,  Hy. — 'Lectures  on  the  Ethics  of  Green,  Spencer  and 
Martineau\ 

Sorlev,  W.  R. — A  review  of  'The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty'  in 
'The  Hibbert  Journal',  vol.  VII,  Xo.  L 


lioyce   and  Individual  ion 


95 


Spinoza. — 'Ethics'. 

Seth,  A. — 'Hegelianism  and  Personality'. 

Seth,  J. — A  review  of  The  Conception  of  God'  in  The  Phil. 

Rev.,  vol.  VII. 
Tennyson — In  Memoriam. 
Thilly,  F. — A  review  of  'The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty'  in  The 

Philosophical  Review',  vol.  XVII. 
Ward,  J. — 'The  Realm  of  Ends'. 
Woodbridge,  F.  J.  E.— 'The  Hibbert  Journal'  vol.  II.,  Xo.  I. 


DUE  DATE 


Pntuea 
in  USA 


>  .,:";}<■  ■ 
v"-  '\Ttill 


)»){ 


I 


K»  ■ 


5J'? 


I?' 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


I 


0021841810 
n  r 


/*?/     /^r/ 


DP 


i 


^4] 
4\ 


*'■>. 


m 


^r^mii  DO  ^'o^ 

PHOTOCOPY 


11 


^6  J  / 


1922 


-«<a. 


«* 


> 


fi 


^ 


I 


